


The Probability of Failure: The Criminal

by B_Radley



Series: Diana's Journeys [5]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon character centric, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Multi, Original Character(s), Zeltrons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-05-29 03:33:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15064211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi, still reeling from the loss of his Master the year before and struggling to fulfill his promise to train the Chosen One, is sent to assist Jedi Knight Shaak Ti in apprehending a dangerous criminal on Zeltros. But the mission is complicated when the criminal they are hunting for is responsible for the murder of Shaak Ti’s padawan—the second that she has lost to violence.As they struggle to come to terms with their new paths—paths that could easily end for both at the hands of a ruthless criminal syndicate--they will learn from each other, and perhaps learn a little more about themselves, as well.





	1. The Grief of a Loss So Overwhelming

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To Learn That Lesson](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8431225) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly). 



> It’s not necessary to read others in the series. It might help to read _The Probablility of Failure: The Mother_ for a bit of context. It is a short story.
> 
> Thanks to Merfilly for giving a name to Ti’s first Padawan and a species to her second. Any mistakes are mine.
> 
> This is a true work in progress; will post weekly, hopefully.
> 
> Thanks for reading.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hesitation? A dream of children; an unlikely master, an unlikely student. Another parent assists.

**Prologue: Zeltros**  
**One year after the Naboo Crisis**

Jaten Gorlute, Acolyte-Probationary Junior Inspector of the Chalice of Omri, in the service of his homeworld, watches the backdoor of the downrent hostel. He takes a deep breath, allowing himself a moment to glance at his reflection in the window next to him. His brand new civilian suit has replaced the sober gray of his Bailiff’s uniform. He manages to keep his resonance—the empathic gift of his people under control; a primary requirement for any Acolyte, but especially for those chosen as Bailiffs or Inspectors for the _You-kah-torin,_ the Land of Song, as his world was known.

He shakes his head, bringing his concentration to his task. Lornan Kreestate, the gruff Senior Inspector, had told him in great detail what they were trying to capture. A rarity in Zeltron society—an unabashed murderer. A woman who had slaughtered her family to, in her words to an Inspector’s informant, experience the raw emotions of their terror. A woman that he and the other Acolytes were desperate to take off of the streets; to get her the help that she might need. A woman now sought by the Republic as well, for the murder of a Jedi Padawan. 

All save one Acolyte. Lornan Kreestate had shoved his finger into Jaten’s chest. _You have a chance, take the shot. Put her in a cremation chamber_. Jaten had remembered the look of anger in the older officer’s pale blue eyes. Something that Jaten had rarely experienced in a peacekeeper; save when dealing with drunken offworlders trying to live up to Zeltros’s reputation for light and joy. Even then, it was only a bit of _impatience_ ; not what he had seen in Kreestate’s eyes.

For the second time in as many minutes, Gorlute checks the blaster under his arm. Zeltron peacekeepers were generally unarmed; Inspectors and certain others were trained in and carried lethal weapons. 

The peace of the night is shattered by the muffled sound of blasterfire in the hostel. His comm crackles to life. “Move in! _Breach, breach, breach_!” Lornan’s voice comes over the air. Jaten comes alert, just as the door bursts open from the upper floor of the hostel. He sees a lithe figure leap to the ground and stumble.

He manages to catch a glimpse of an expanse of light red skin and purple hair flying in braids. A tall young woman, her face twisted in a grimace as she favors her right foot, looks straight at him as he runs over. He brings his blaster up; switching it to ‘stun’. 

“Halt! Bailiffs!” 

He sees a sneer further twist the woman’s features. She laughs, an incongruously musical sound to his ears. He fires the bolt. As he does, his eyes lock on a healing scar through her right eyebrow.

She reels, but doesn’t fall. He fires again. His mind is suddenly enclosed in a grip of raw fear and pain, twisting both his brain and his heart with a thousand knives. He manages to switch the selector on his blaster to the lethal setting.

Through the pain of her empathic assault; something stronger than he had ever encountered in his training, he detects a tiny needle of something else.

_Pain._

The muzzle of his blaster tracks downward. Gray flows around the edges of his vision. When it fades, a lifetime later, he finds himself staring at Lornan Kreestate’s face, contempt painted over his crimson features.

“You useless bastard,” Kreestate sneers. 

Jaten feels a fist grab his new shirtfront. He is propelled so quickly up the stairs that he barely registers the trip. His eyes focus on the corpse of another Inspector in the hall, a blaster burn still smoking in his chest.

Kreestate doesn’t stop there. He shoves Jaten into the hostel room, past the other inspectors and the armored figures of the entry team. Two figures lie on the bed. One with their head bent at an odd angle; he is bathed in the blood of the other informant from a gaping wound on the throat.

“I told you to take the shot.” Kreestate seizes his jaw, forcing his head around; forcing him to focus on the carnage. “Look at it. Remember it. This is what you let live.” He releases Jaten and turns to stalk out of the room.

Jaten slumps against the wall, sliding down to the floor. He stares at the blaster hanging loosely in his hand.

+=+=+=+=+=

Shaak Ti opens her eyes slowly, as she hears a rustling noise. Her hand moves slowly to the sheathed knife resting on the pile of hunt clothing. She smiles as a familiar presence makes itself known in her Force-sense. She sees the amber eyes reflected in the myriad of stars that mark the clear night skies of the plains of her birthworld.

“Hello, Mother,” she says quietly, speaking aloud rather than just in her mind.

 _+I told you before, huntress. Not quite a mother,+_ says the growling voice in her mind.

Ti smiles to herself. “Perhaps, Mother. But you know the pain of loss—the loss of children and students.”

She can almost sense the pain in the _akul’s_ mind-voice. Pain tempered by amusement.  
+Perhaps, huntress. But I’m not here about my losses. I keep having my hunting interrupted by your unquiet mind. Even from worlds away.+

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Ti says contritely. “I didn’t know one linking would tie you to me. I would’ve never tried to link if I did.”

_+No matter. It keeps a certain red and gray male from climbing on me at every opportunity. Seems the bites that I give him when we fight don’t deter him.+_

Ti snickers. “I’m fairly certain that either you’re not biting hard enough, or he keeps you entertained,” she says.

She hears the snort in the _akul’s_ voice. _+Perhaps. At least mildly. What about your hunter, huntress. Your, what-did-you-call-it, hunt-brother?+_

“Makyo is back home. I’ve returned to my kind. My kind-beyond-the-stars”

_+Ah, yes. The wizards. Have you gone back to wizarding?+_

Ti looks down. “Not exactly. They don’t seem to know what to do with me. They seem to be afraid that I’m going to break after Fe Sun’s death.”

_+Then why don’t you return to the Plains? All you have to do is hunt, eat, drink, sleep, and mount or be mounted. The simple life.+_

Ti laughs. “You make it sound so easy. No, I can’t. Something draws me back to the Jedi.”

_+What?+_

“I don’t know,” cries Ti, the anguish surprising even her.

Her mind-companion is silent. Ti’s eyes widen as she senses another presence. A mewling cry is heard from near the _akul’s_ shoulder, where she has laid down. A tiny figure, an _akul_ cub of a few weeks old, stumbles out into the light and rolls playfully near the older.

Ti’s eyes tear as her mind-companion butts the cub with her snout, sending it into another roll. As it comes up shakily onto its feet, Ti sees it clearly for the first time. The cub—a male from its Force-signature—is covered in an iron-gray fur. 

Her gaze falls on the cub’s eyes. Eyes of a dark green, with gold flecks. Ti cries out, as she is sure that she has seen the eyes before.

She springs up in the bed, her eyes flying open. She realizes that she is no longer on the plains of Shili. She lies in a bed in the comfort of the Jedi Temple. _The dubious comfort, right now._

She hears a noise next to her. She looks down and immediately regrets it. She feels certain sorenesses in her legs that bring her back to the night before. 

Her lover continues to snore, his braids flowing on the pillow. Ti can just make out the yellow tattoo over the bridge of his nose, bright against his dark features.

Ti places the heels of her hands against her eyes, scrubbing them. Her mind leaves the already-forming regrets of the night before, to the mystery of her dream. _Or was it a vision?_

_What does it mean?_

+=+=+=+=+=

Obi-Wan Kenobi watches as Anakin turns and walks away, his shoulders slumped. Obi-Wan’s heart clinches at the resigned posture—resigned with a hint of anger. Kenobi knows that he only has a few years before more than a hint of anger and defiance may creep in to the resignation.

He takes the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, massaging it as his eyes close. 

As the door to their apartments shuts, he tries to recall what had precipitated Anakin’s usual flight from him. 

He finds that it is harder and harder to recall, even minutes ago, as the disagreements and his inability to connect with the boy; or for the boy to connect with him multiply and run together. He sighs, wondering if he had been as much as a challenge to Qui-Gon Jinn as Anakin is to him. He smiles ruefully. _Probably more._

As it always occurs, any thought of his late master brings a knife-sharp pain to the still-raw wound of his death. He closes his eyes even tighter as he sees the red lightsaber blade grow from his chest. More emotions follow. The anger and then triumph; even satisfaction as he watches Maul plummet to his death.

The intense shame at those feelings, not even hours after he had killed the Sith Lord. The shame and pain that continues. 

_A Jedi knows not anger, nor fear. No hatred; no love._

He knows all of them are each falsehoods, just as Qui-Gon had taught him. _A Jedi isn’t ruled by any of these, Obi-Wan_ , he hears in the deep voice of his Master. He knows that he had experienced all of them with Jinn. 

Sometimes all at once. He sighs, gets up and pulls his robe off of its hook. He steps out of the apartment, intent on finding Anakin and trying to understand what the boy needs.

Maybe what he wants, as well. Something that no one has probably ever asked the Chosen One before.

He stops as Luminara Unduli steps out from a corridor. He smiles at his age-and youngling clan-mate, bowing to her.

She returns his smile carefully. “Hello, Obi-Wan,” she says, her eyes softening. Memories of growing up together, of experimentations and laughter, as well as each of them trying to keep the other (or others) from killing Quinlan Vos on an alternating weekly basis, before one or the other ‘made-up’ with him. Sometimes together.

Her smile fades as she gets a closer look at his face. “Anakin?” she asks. 

He looks down. “You know me too well.”

She reaches over and touches his arm. “You’ll find a way, Obi-Wan,” she says. “I have faith in you.”

“More than I do, I’m afraid,” he replies. 

Her blue eyes narrow. “You’re one of the most compassionate people I know, in spite of the occasional urge for me to choke the life out of you when we were younger. You’re the padawan of another man who, in spite of the disagreements you had with him, was another man of compassion at the end of the day. I think that you’ll manage.”

He looks down at her words. _Some days we were compassionate, Luminara_ , he thinks to himself.

Their attention is drawn to a door opening down the corridor. Their eyes bug as one as they see who steps out from familiar quarters, looks both ways furtively, then steps towards her own quarters. They both pull back into the shadows, each wondering why the other was hiding.

They share looks at one another and then watch as Shaak Ti raises her head high, her robes, boots, and weapons belt in her hand.

“Well, that’s different,” Luminara says. 

“Yes,” Obi-Wan agrees. “Not who I might’ve expected.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ll go talk to Vos.” _As if I didn’t have enough of a pre-adolescent to deal with._

“I’ll talk to Ti. Let’s make sure they’re both alright. Ti most of all.”

Obi-Wan smirks for a moment, as they turn to their separate tasks.. “I’ll see if she hid the body.”

+=+=+=+=+=

Ti kneels on the zafu in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. The sounds of younglings climbing trees fades from her consciousness as she reaches deeper into her own mind. She knows that she should probably admonish them, but at this particular moment, she can’t bring herself to quash any joy.

Only her own. The intense, almost desperate grappling with Quinlan Vos had brought no respite from the crushing grief. It had mostly brought her respite only from the emptiness of her rooms.

Someone had cleaned out the padawan room of Fe’s meager belongings, sometime before she had returned from Shili. She smiles in spite of her emptiness. She sees the hand of Luminara Unduli, or Plo Koon—even both of them. The smile turns sheepish as she thinks of her escape from Vos’s room, earlier. She had detected both Luminara’s and Obi-Wan’s familiar Force signatures in her haste to leave.

She thinks of the care and compassion of her fellow Jedi. She is sure that Luminara would soon find her to inquire of her well-being.

Ti shakes her head. Even Vos, whose reputation was not one of sensitivity, had risen to the occasion. After they had both collapsed, their respirations slowing in time, he had taken her in his arms and had merely held her. No awkward attempts at soothing; he had merely held her in silence. Giving her the chance to talk or not talk. She is sure that he had stayed awake until after she had drifted off, one large hand caressing her cheek, then her arm with perplexing gentleness; the other on her back under her rear lek.

 _Layers, my lad. Many layers_ , she thinks of the younger Jedi.

Her mind tingles with a familiar sign; not the one that she had expected. Her face grows soft with memory of a Jedi who’d been her master in all but name. Who had taken on her teachings, while taking care not to step on the feet of the Corellian woman who had the title—a woman who had taken an apprentice merely as a path to gain rank in the Order. 

A woman no more suited to teaching than one of the stones of the Temple.

“Hello, Master Plo,” she says quietly. She opens her eyes, sees him contemplating the younglings skylarking in the trees. She notices that he is focused particularly on a five-year old leading the hijinks at the top. She feels the spark of pride in his mind before he turns away from watching his foundling Togruta.

“Hello, Shaak,” he replies in his rumbling baritone. She marvels at the compassion and softness that exudes from his fearsome visage. The patience of a master teacher and mentor.

She grins. “Before you ask, I am well,” she says, rising from her knees.

She feels the amusement coming off of him in waves. “Wasn’t going to ask, Shaak,” he says smoothly. “Although Knight Unduli seemed to be a bit unsettled.”

Ti laughs. “Never _concerned_ , right, Master?”

“Never,” he replies with a chuckle. “I believe she mentioned Knight Vos, somewhere in this whole mystery.”

Ti is sure that her lekku stripes flush. “I wouldn’t know anything about his whereabouts,” she says, only halfway honestly. She feels the smile under the mask. 

“I’m sure,” Plo says dryly. He grows serious. “No one begrudges you any way of healing, Ti,” he says.

“Maybe they should,” she replies darkly.

He falls silent, looking at her through his mask. She turns away from his gaze.

“When are you and the Council going to let me return to duty?”

“When are you going to let yourself heal and mourn, Ti?” he asks. 

“I think that’s what I’ve been doing. For months, now,” she replies.

“I don’t think that you have,” he says.

Ti stops as if poleaxed.

“I think that all that you’ve been doing is existing. Barely that.”

She is about to reply when there is a slight cough from behind them. They both turn. Luminara and one of the promising Initiates, a young Twi’lek female stand there.

“I beg your pardon, Master Plo,” Luminara says. “Initiate Secura found me. The Council wants to see both of you. I’m to bring Shaak to wait at their convenience.”

Ti sees Plo nod, then follows suit.

“We can continue this another time, Shaak,” he says. “But I think it’s a conversation we need to have.”

As she walks with Luminara, her mind searches for answers, yet again.


	2. I Feel How Weak and Fruitless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An assignment. A talk between Knights. An examination and a change of heart. Second chances, on both sides of the question.

Obi-Wan enters the silent Council chamber and marches to the middle. His bow is correct, but his thoughts are not. As he releases the obeisance, his eyes lock on those of Yoda. 

“Grave news we have, Obi-Wan,” the Grand Master of the Order says, in his oddly ruptured syntax. “Grave news for Knight Ti, as well as a world of the Republic.”

He falls silent. Obi-Wan waits patiently. Mace Windu takes up the narration as Yoda contemplates the top of his gimer stick, wrapped in his hands, as always.

“The criminal Lyshaa has surfaced again on Zeltros. A local security officer as well as an informant and, as near as we can tell, an innocent bystander were slaughtered.”

Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows. Mace Windu is many things, but he is not a Jedi Master given to hyperbolic descriptions. He closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, after a count of ten, his gaze takes in the members of the Council facing him. He can feel the ones behind him’s Force signatures examining his own emotions. He takes another deep breath, releases it.

“Have you informed Jedi Ti?” he asks.

Mace’s own gaze is even. “No. We haven’t. The Zeltrons have requested our assistance. You will go there and make contact with the Acolyte-Chief Inspector for Inquiries, a person named Kanylynaan na’Torstan’ii. She’ll be your point of contact. You’re to apprehend Lyshaa.” 

Windu’s gaze narrows as Obi-Wan say nothing. “We’ve intelligence that Lyshaa has contacted another crime syndicate. We will be looking into the problem from that angle, as well as your task,” he says. 

“Why am I being assigned this, Master?” Kenobi finally asks. 

“Because you were first on the scene when our padawan was killed by Lyshaa.”

“No, Master Windu, I actually wasn’t. Jedi Ti was. She has a great deal of knowledge on Lyshaa. We should use that.”

“You were the first one on the scene without a master’s bond with the murdered padawan,” Ki-Adi Mundi says. “This is precisely why you will be going and she will not.”

Obi-Wan looks at Plo Koon, the Council member closest to Ti. The Kel Dor remains impassive behind his mask. Kenobi turns one side of his mouth upward as he sees the tiniest fraction of a nod.

“Begging the Council’s pardon. I don’t mean to be impertinent or disrespectful. However, I feel that it must be said. I was there. I felt the grief rolling from Shaak Ti in waves. Her second padawan in a decade in her arms.

“But I was also requested to go to Shili, to try and pull Ti back to us. Requested by those who hold her in high regard. What I found there was a Jedi, still in turmoil—grieving, but one who was finding peace. Not the peace of abandoning everything she had known, but the peace of searching for purpose again.”

“This is the danger of excess attachment,” Oppo Rancisis says. “She should not be grieving this long, but celebrating that her padawans are one with the Force.”

Obi-Wan grits his teeth as he hears low murmurs of agreement. He notices that Yoda remains silent. He manages to remain calm. 

“We’ve examined Knight Ti,” Mace says. “We still sense great pain from her. She should not be exposed to the opportunity for her grief to turn to anger. She is a powerful Jedi, one who will have the rank of Master in a short time. She would be an equally powerful opponent if she were to fall.”

“Masters, I sense no indication of darkness in her. Especially on her world,” he starts.

“An expert in the dark side, you consider yourself, Obi-Wan?” Rancisis asks.

Obi-Wan smiles, the opening obvious. He decides to belabor it. “Yes. Being the only one in this room who has faced a Sith Lord.” The chamber falls silent, until Ki-Adi breaks it, seemingly oblivious to the heaviness.

“What of the story that you told us of when you first came upon Jedi Ti in the wilderness? When she had drawn her own blood to draw a dangerous predator to her, while she was barely clothed and barely armed?” Mundi asks. “That smacks of suicidal tendencies—of a grief so powerful that she would rather die. That much grief is only so far from intense anger.”

Obi-Wan looks at Mundi. “I thought that, too. She acknowledged to me that her actions could be mistaken for self-destruction. But she merely wanted to commune with the beast.” He looks down, then focuses on Plo. “It was then that I sensed the beginnings of peace. Of understanding. I think that’s where she actually decided to come back to us, rather than remain on Shili.” He looks down. “I think that she’ll struggle in finding her purpose, if she doesn’t find closure with Fe Sun’s murderer. If she doesn’t help bring her to justice.”

“We’ve deliberated on this, Obi-Wan. We only want what’s best for Ti,” Mace says. “Therefore it is the judgement of the Council that she not be allowed to go to Zeltros.”

Obi-Wan starts to speak, but falls silent. He is about to bow and accept the words when a voice comes from an unexpected quarter.

“No,” Yoda says. 

Mace turns to him. “Master Yoda?”

“Examine our Knight, I wish to. Once again. There is something in the Force that—.” He falls silent. 

Mace looks as if to argue, but sighs. “I’m sure that we’ve made the right decision, Master,” he says. “But I will bow to your wisdom in these matters.” He looks at Kenobi, waiting patiently. “Go to Jedi Ti,” he says. “She’s waiting with Jedi Unduli. Take her to Master Yoda’s quarters. Make your preparations for Zeltros. We’ll inform you of our decision.”

Obi-Wan bows and turns towards the door, hope rising that something will defeat the despair that he, Luminara, and Quin had sensed in Ti. As he leaves, he sees Koon stand and walk over to Yoda. He bows; Kenobi hears the rumbling voice.

“Thank you, old friend, for reconsidering.”

Kenobi notices that Yoda says nothing, merely stares off into the distance.

+=+=+=+=+=

Shaak Ti sips the strong caf as she sits in the small anteroom off of the Council tower. She rubs her forehead as she tries to figure out how she had wound up in Quinlan Vos’s bed the night before. 

There had been no alcohol involved; while she did occasionally imbibe, her grief had not driven her to any chemical escapes. She rolls her eyes. _Apparently only to a pair of broad shoulders and as close to a free spirit as the Jedi would find._

Ti searches her memory for the exact moment that had led her to falling into his skin and lips. She thinks it might’ve been the moment when he has sent her lightsaber spinning away from her in an early evening spar. When his hand had touched hers when handing her the weapon, while she tried to grasp the fact that he had actually managed to disarm her in the first place. 

She had seen his eyes widen slightly as he touched her lightsaber, before a warm smile crinkled them. She knew that his particular skill in the realm of Jedi Shadows was psychometry, the ability to gain some Force or psychic remnant from objects. 

Before she could ask him what he had detected, the grin and the crinkled eyes had been only centimeters above hers in his bed.

She smiles to herself, then shakes her head of the thoughts and memories, steeling herself for the approaching meeting with the Jedi Council.

Beside her on the couch, she feels Luminara Unduli’s eyes, only a shade darker than her own violet, gazing at her every move. She also senses yet another sigh coming on from the younger Knight.

“Out with it, Luminara. Before you run out of air,” she says.

“Quinlan Vos, Ti? Really?”

Ti sets her cup down on the end table. As she does, Luminara reaches up and with a raised dark eyebrow of permission sleeping, adjusts the crooked headdress on Ti’s forehead. The movement gives her time to gather herself.

“I know. It just happened. He seemed so uncomplicated.”

Luminara snorts. “Truer words were never spoken about that man-child.”

Ti raises her brow line. 

“Obi-Wan coined that name for him when the three of us were all in bed when our masters were off-planet.”

Ti lifts her cup from the table and downs the rest of the caf.

“What?” Luminara asks. “I’m sure you had those in your age group that you discussed deep philosophical issues with while naked.”

Ti grins. “No. Not really. A couple of fumbling attempts here. Had more success after Plo managed to talk Master Tarith into letting me train in the Hunt on Shili.” She looks away. “Found some good hunt-sisters and brothers to learn from, since I wasn’t among my clan.” She grins. “And to teach a few things.”

Luminara laughs for a brief second, then her eyes grow serious. “You know that there are others who would help you, if you wanted.” She reaches over and takes Ti’s hand, clasping it between hers. “If there are any deep philosophical issues that you might want to discuss,” she finishes, looking down and away.

Ti’s eyes close at the sympathy in Unduli’s touch and voice. She wills herself not to give into the grief—nor the warmth.

“I know,” she whispers. “I didn’t intend for the ‘discussion’ with Quin to take place. I appreciate the offer, Nara,” she says. 

“Shaak, are you alright?” Luminara asks directly.

Ti is quick to answer. “I’m fine, Nara,” she says. She avoids the skeptical look on Luminara’s tattooed features. Ti pulls her hand away from her fellow Knight, lest her feelings are betrayed yet again. 

“Ti, you don’t have to jump right back into the Order,” Luminara says. “You can take all of the time that you need.”

Ti smiles. “I know. But I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing since I got back from Shili. ‘Taking all the time that I need’.” She looks out at the cityscape, the incessant air traffic. “I’m ready to move forward. I’m just waiting for the Council to let me.”

“Do you think you’ll take another student?”

Ti feels her shoulders slump. “I don’t know. I can hear the words being unspoken in the corridors. Oppo Rancisis seems to be the source of them. That they won’t be able to trust me with another padawan.” She snorts. “What padawan would accept my choosing?”

Luminara stands up. “That is, as Quin would say, pure unadulterated bantha poodoo. Everyone saw what you did with those young ones. Their progress. Their respect for you and your culture. Hell, you saved Fe Sun from the Agri-Corps when her master was fairly useless. You’re an incredible teacher—even when you were grieving Atti’s death, you took her on.”

“Neither of them survived the experience.”

Ti can see the impact that her words have on Luminara. She looks away. 

Ti changes the subject. “When are you going to take a padawan, Nara?” she asks. 

Luminara manages to smile. “A few more years. There will be a Mirialan of age by then. She seems a likely candidate—very well balanced and skilled in her youngling lessons. Especially in the healing aptitudes.”

Ti can feel her warmth; the brief joy at the discussion of the future. She wonders if it would be proper to take a Togruta padawan, as Mirialan custom requires of Jedi of their species. 

Before she can say anything further, the door opens to the small waiting area. Obi-Wan Kenobi walks in. His blue eyes focus on Ti. She rises as well, ignoring Luminara’s look of warmth. 

“Shaak, Master Yoda would like to see you in his quarters,” he says without preamble.

 _So it begins_ , she thinks. 

Obi-Wan turns to Luminara. “Nara, the Council has your next assignment. Sounds like you’re headed to Corellia.”

Ti bows to Luminara. Without hesitation, Luminara pulls her into her arms, holding her tightly, before she exits the room.

Ti turns and follows Obi-Wan to her next step.

+=+=+=+=+=

Obi-Wan watches Shaak Ti out of the corner of his eye as they move through the quiet, but teeming corridors of the Temple. He smiles to himself at the familiar serene features. His smile fades as he remembers other times that the serenity was less apparent. 

The moment that he had come upon her on the Zeltron freighter, holding her padawan in her arms. He remembers every frame of the vision. Of Fe Sun’s felinoid eyes dimming. 

Of his memory of Ti’s violet eyes at that moment—the eyes of a master hunter on her world, according to legend. A legend imparted him in a brief conversation on that same world with Ti’s hunt-brother, Makyo Ry.

Eyes in which the light had vanished as well, as surely as Ti had received the knife thrust.

“I can feel you thinking, Obi-Wan,” Ti says out of one side of her mouth. He starts as he sees one violet eye glancing at him, a hint of amusement in it.

“A dangerous pastime, I know,” he says. 

“You should be thinking about your padawan. About how to deal with the Chosen One,” she says dryly.

Obi-Wan feels his eyes widen as they turn the corner to another residential wing. “Shaak, I—,” he begins.

Ti stops for a moment. “I know. You haven’t wanted to talk about Anakin. You’ve wanted to deal with your struggles alone,” she says. Her eyes glance downward. “You don’t have to,” she finishes. “Fe was difficult. She was resentful, after the initial joy that someone had taken her side; that someone was willing to take a chance on her.”

She turns and continues to walk. He manages to catch up to her. “I saw no evidence of that, in the little bit I saw you interact,” he says gently. _Before._

“That’s because you hadn’t seen the growth. The growth in both of us,” she says. “I was angry at Plo for pushing me to take Fe Sun, when Atti died. I’m coming to the realization that he might’ve been right.

“You might think that someone else could’ve been right with you and Anakin, as well,” she finishes. 

Obi-Wan feels his anger spike for a moment, but lets it fade as Ti stops in front of a simple door. She closes her eyes. 

“Come,” says a familiar voice. Obi-Wan follows Ti into the chamber. He had never been in the Grand Master’s chambers; his minor shenanigans as a padawan had only reached the attention of his master or on a couple of occasions—Mace Windu. The major shenanigans, had brought him before the Council. 

He wasn’t sure what he expected (a brief flash of a swamp with low hanging trees and snakes is quickly and mercifully shoved into the recesses of his mind), but the simple chamber with multiple meditation pads in the center was not what immediately came to mind.

“Sit, both of you,” Yoda says. He waves a wizened green hand at a low table. Obi-Wan’s trained senses detect a spicy Artifarian blend of tea leaves. He is tempted, but Ti sits immediately. Obi-Wan follows her lead, ignoring his nostrils.

He watches as Yoda and Ti gaze at each other in silence. He is about to speak when Yoda laughs, a warm smile playing over his features. 

“Know not to engage in a serenity contest with you, young one,” he says. “My master you are at that.”

Obi-Wan sees Shaak’s shoulders relax minutely. 

“Never, Master Yoda,” she says. “Never a master.” Obi-Wan can feel the almost lethal smirk form, even in her voice. “Perhaps a talented equal?”

Yoda’s warmth in the Force is palpable as Obi-Wan relaxes, as well.

“Come to change my mind on going to Zeltros, you have?” he asks. 

Ti smiles, then looks down. “I can only hope, Master,” she says. Obi-Wan watches as her hands tighten on her knees. 

Yoda notices as well. “Your grief, your fellow Jedi recognize. Only concern for you they have. Even ones more obstinate and set in their ways they are.”

“Master. I know this. But I feel like I owe it to Fe Sun’s memory to take Lyshaa.”

Obi-Wan sees Yoda’s large eyes narrow at the choice of words. “Take her? That could be construed as a different meaning from a huntress of Shili, than bringing the criminal to justice. Apprehending her,” he says. 

Ti closes her eyes. “My mistake. I owe it to Fe Sun—,” she starts again. 

Yoda raises his hand, his eyes now undisguised in their hardness—something rarely seen. “No clarification is needed. But Fe Sun is not owed anything.” His features soften. “A part of the Force, Fe Sun is. You only owe your actions to yourself, Jedi Ti,” he says in a lower voice.

“I owe it to her memory,” Ti says, only a hint of a familiar stubborn tone in her voice.

“Her memory is important. Always with us, she is. But move forward you have to,” he chides. 

Ti is silent. Yoda allows her silence for a moment. “What is your intention with Lyshaa, if we were to let you go to Zeltros.”

Ti looks over at Obi-Wan, who nods slightly. “The same as any Jedi. To capture her and bring her to the Republic or to the Zeltrons for their justice. To guard peace and justice in the galaxy.”

Obi-Wan sees no flicker in her eyes, nor twitch in her face as she stares down at Yoda. 

“What are you and the Council afraid of?” she asks suddenly. “Has the reappearance of the Sith led you to believe that I’m in danger of falling to the Dark Side? Are you seeing Sith under every stone?”

Yoda remains stoic, but continues looking up at her. 

Ti gestures to Kenobi. “If I go, I’ll be in the company of the one Jedi who has faced a Sith lord and defeated him. I’m sure that Obi-Wan wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, if by some reason after thirty years of Jedi teachings, I do fall. He’ll not let me kill Lyshaa.”

Obi-Wan’s insides twist at her words. _No_ , he thinks. _No, no, no._

“Wrong you are, Shaak Ti,” Yoda finally replies. “We are watchful of the Sith. But we are not yet watchful of our own. We only want you to heal. To find peace.” He stops, closes his eyes. 

Obi-Wan feels his powerful mind reaching out, running its tendrils over both he and Ti. 

Finally, again, Yoda speaks. “Very well. Go you will to Zeltros. Go and make ready, Jedi Ti.”

Ti hesitates, then rises. She bows to Yoda. She turns and smiles softly at Obi-Wan as she exits.

The atmosphere is heavy in the room when she does.

“She’s not wrong, is she, Master Yoda?” Obi-Wan asks. 

Yoda looks down, contemplating his bare toe-claws. “Making inquiries, Master Windu is.. There has been no sign of the other of the Two.”

“But,” Obi-Wan says.

“The dark side is growing in the Council’s senses. Pinpoint it, we cannot.”

“Is that the ‘something in the Force’ you spoke of in the chamber?

A mischievous smile grows on the wizened features. “No. Something to stop debate, that is,” he says.

Their laughter rises together for at least two minutes. 

“No darkness, do I detect in Shaak Ti,” Yoda says when they both calm. “Troubled, she is. There is something in the Force that I saw. A vague picture in my mind.”

He looks directly at Obi-Wan. “Nevertheless, you must be prepared. Speak to Master Windu before you leave, you must.”

As Obi-Wan rises, his heart sinks as he thinks of the unspoken words from Yoda.

_Sithkiller._

+=+=+=+=+=

Xizor, Prince of the Falleen House of Sizhran, watches with distaste at the Zeltron’s features on his holocomm. A pair of lips playing over his shoulders calms him. 

“So you think that since the Pykes and my fellow vigos of Black Sun rejected your overtures before, that I might consider that you would be useful to me?” he asks. 

“No. I thought that you might be interested in the profit of what I took from the Pykes when they rejected me. Maybe even a bit of what I took from that thug Xitan Moj when his lackey tried to kill me and eat my heart,” she says.

“Entry codes to the coaxium vaults on Kessel? A couple of secret hyperspace routes from Moj’s private stash? Don’t know if that’s enough to overcome my revulsion for your species, Zeltron.”

Lyshaa smiles, an expression that would chill the marrow of a lesser being. Her odd crimson-purple eyes retain their color. She tosses her long purple hair over her shoulders. “I could sell these to others. There are a couple of small families, such as the Antols that might look to grow a bit. Maybe even the Zygerrians could diversify their portfolio a bit. But I thought of you, my Prince. I thought that you would appreciate someone of my talents at acquiring things. Or disposing of them.”

Xizor smiles. “I have many butchers at my disposal. Your skills are most impressive—slaughtering your family as an audition. But I might be afraid that you might want to audition for someone else.”

“Prince Xizor, you are known as the most intelligent and open minded of the Underlord’s vigos. I perhaps made a mistake in not seeking you out in the beginning.”

“Perhaps. I’ll send an emissary to your world. He will determine the value of my offer and report back.”

Lyshaa’s smile fades. “I’d rather not deal with a minion, Prince. I think my skills are valuable enough to bring to you. I can’t help that you despise my people, because we’re the one species that can’t be affected by your pheromones.” She smiles wolfishly. “I kind of despise my puling species as well.”

Xizor’s voice remains cool. “Take it or leave it, Zeltron,” he says. He turns his full attention back to the the human in the bathing pool with him, bringing his teeth into the dark skin of the muscled shoulders. He hears a sigh from the pickup.

“Very well. I’ll transmit coordinates for a rendezvous. How will I know who to look for?”

Xizor smiles his own version of a lupine expression. He twists his fingers gently in the hair of the human, turning his head to kiss him deeply, almost possessively. The kiss grows more tender. “They’ll know you, my dear,” he says.

He cuts the feed, turning his partner around to face him. “Look at this as your audition, Galatin,” he says. “Find out how useful she might be, especially to make inroads on her world. Get the codes. If she is too much trouble, end her. Bring her heart to me, so that I can feast on it in the traditions of my people.”

He stares at the new hire. “Make sure you disinfect yourself, if you have to partake of a Zeltron, before you come back to me.”

The man smiles, a devilish expression on his features. “It will be done, my lord,” he says. He turns around in Xizor’s arms, leaning on the side of the pool.

The Falleen releases more of the pheremones, as his mind’s eye no longer focuses on the minion, but on possibilities.

_So many possibilities._


	3. Any Word of Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Farewell to all that’s familiar. The cops are beside themselves. The Land of Song beckons. Lyshaa’s pain.

Obi-Wan watches as Anakin slumps, then raises his head with its accompanying resigned expression on his face. _I seem to have his body language down to a science. Not sure that’s a good thing_ , he thinks.

He smiles to himself briefly as the next stage of facial expression plays over Anakin’s features. A charming, beatific smile, an expression that goes nowhere near his eyes. Kenobi sighs, placing his hand on the Chosen One’s shoulder. He realizes he doesn’t need to reach as far down as only a week ago, as Anakin, thriving in the food and healthy environment of the Temple, had shot up in another growth spurt—possibly even overnight.

“I’ll be back soon, Ani,” he says. “I think you’ll enjoy Master Plo’s piloting camp on Ord Seratus. He says that you’re a natural pilot.”

“I’m sure I will, Master,” he says. “But I’d rather go with you to Zeltros. I’m your padawan, not some youngling. My duty is to protect my master.”

Kenobi silently curses whoever had taught Ani the hierarchy and duties of apprentices in the Jedi Order. He crouches down to Ani’s level. “I know, Anakin. You are my padawan. But you’ve some catching up to do. Not very much,” he adds to soften the blow, “but some. Enjoy yourself. Bond with some of the other young ones in the class.” He grins. “Have a little fun. Anyone who could destroy a Trade Federation droid control ship at age nine, should have no problems with an Aethersprite class through the Cloud Canyons of Deleni.”

“I thought Jedi weren’t supposed to think of anything as fun,” Anakin says, a trifle darkly. 

“Well, occasionally we lapse,” Kenobi says. He places his hand behind his back and crosses his fingers in a superstitious guard against falsehood’s curse.

“Master, have you heard anything more from the Council on going back to Tattooine? To get my mother?”

Kenobi’s heart sinks at the simple question. He curses the phrase that now haunts him from that first time. About ‘collecting pathetic lifeforms.’ He wishes that Qui-Gon had gone back to see to Anakin’s mother. He looks down; knowing that they had barely escaped from the Sith with their lives; but that had not excused their inaction for the slaves since. 

He wonders which excuse he will get from the Council when he asks this time. The ‘attachment’ one, or the ‘not the right time to upset the Hutts’ one. 

Obi-Wan shakes his head. The newly elected Supreme Chancellor had made it a moot point; had forbidden any forays against the Hutts, as the Republic recovered from the Naboo crisis. Palpatine had expressed sympathy for Anakin’s plight, but had firmly rebuffed any attempt to solve the issue. The cynical part of Kenobi wonders how much the influence of those who profited from the Hutts remaining in power, had influenced that decision. 

He doesn’t voice this to his apprentice. Palpatine had befriended the boy, following his studies. Kenobi isn’t sure if he should voice it, against the one connection the boy had, outside of himself.

“I’ll ask again, Anakin. That’s all that I can do.”

Kenobi is saved by a bright light in his Force-sense—brighter than it had been in months. He turns to Master Ti. He tries to stifle his reaction to the look in her eyes as she sees his hand on Anakin’s shoulder.

As she turns away to find the hangar-page for their ship, he wonders again why he had been the one to take on this responsibility. He hears Qui-Gon’s voice in his mind. _You’re a better man than I could ever be, Obi-Wan._

Would a ‘better man’ be so sure that he had done all that he could do?

+=+=+=+=+=

Ti turns away from Obi-Wan’s interactions with his padawan. She can see the awkward body language, the pain on the features. She remembers her struggles with both Atti and Fe Sun in the initial days of being their master. She had only been seven years older than Atti when she had taken him only, barely three years away from her own apprenticeship. 

She knows that she could probably help Obi-Wan through this, but a selfish part of her wants nothing to do with his struggles. She shakes her head, allowing a sharp predator’s incisor to worry her lip—something she had seen Plo’s founding, Tano, do, even at the advanced age of five years old.

Ti wonders if she will ever be able to look on a young Jedi with the same wonder that she had whenever either of her apprentices had overcome a challenge, or with the same pride. 

She wonders if she’ll ever be able to look another Initiate in the eye and not see the accusation—the questions as to her skill as a teacher.

Her reverie is broken by the sound of powerful engines moving slowly across the hangar, towards a parking symbol on the deck in front of her. 

The T-6 shuttle bounces only once, rising, then settling down on to the marshaling spot. Ti smiles as she realizes that she can barely see the head of the pilot in the cockpit. 

She waits patiently as the ramp lowers and the pilot disembarks. She raises her brows with amusement as she sees the crooked, cheeky grin on the young human’s face. She nearly laughs as she sees the youngling, _no, Initiate_ —spying the empty lightsaber hook on his belt, removing backless pilot’s gloves from his hands. Ti manages to stop her eyes from rolling at the affectation of someone who has probably been a qualified pilot for all of two minutes wearing those things for a fifty meter shuttle flight. 

Her heart seizes as she recognizes the face, older now, underneath the unruly mop of dark and gold brindled hair, his earnest face dipping in a slight bow. 

The last time she had encountered the boy, he had been kneeling over Atti’s dying body, holding her padawan’s hand as his life slipped away, then reaching up with his other hand to touch her arm, his eyes brimming with tears. She and Atti had been joking that the Corellian would probably be the first that the overwhelmed padawan chaperone would toss from the top of the Temple.

Only an hour or so before the outing had been attacked by anti-Jedi extremists—with only one casualty as the result. Her solid Noorian hunter, who she had decided only the day before to put forward for the Trials.

Obi-Wan walks up, his own bag slung on his shoulder. “Young Croft, is it?” he asks, nodding to the sketch of a bow from the duty page. “I thought that you were going to accompany my Padawan and Master Plo on the piloting seminar.”

Croft looks down. “I was, master,” he says. “My clan-master felt that I needed extra duty. To convince me of my errors in deportment.”

Kenobi nods. “What did you call him?” he asks quietly.

The boy remains silent. Kenobi sighs. “Go ahead. Report to your station, Croft.”

Ti watches Croft bow, then turn away. “How old is he, now?” she asks as she and Kenobi board the shuttle.

“Rising thirteen, I think? He has Gathered his crystal and built his saber, but I think the Council is concerned that he’s only been training for eight years. He came to us late; he was already five.”

“Younger than the one who came with him—Baldrick. He was eight.”

“Yes. I think the issues Horan has had with him may color the Council’s decision on Croft.”

Ti narrows her eyes as she sits in the pilot’s seat, thinking of Horan, an ambitious Alderaani, coveting a Master’s rank. Her jaw tightens as she thinks of another such master. Ti smiles as she sees that the preflight has been completed and the navicomputer is running warmup calculations. “Maybe they should judge him on his own merits,” she says. 

As she starts to lift the ship from the deck, she looks out. Plo Koon waves his hand in farewell. Young Skywalker stands next to him. She notices Taliesin Croft standing slightly off from them.

Her heart stops as his eyes lock with hers. Warm green orbs; she can just make out tiny flecks of gold in them. She shakes her head. Does she imagine them?

She sees the same eyes staring at her from her dream, in the face of a young akul cub.

Ti narrows her eyes as she glimpses Plo looking from the young one to her, his taloned fingers caressing the bottom of his breath mask, thoughtfully.

_Stay the hell out of it, you old meddler_ , she thinks as they pass from view. She tightens her shielding.

Her mind feels the response as she does. _Me? Meddle? I would never, young Shaak._

_You’re breathing, aren’t you, old man?_

+=+=+=+=+=

Lornan Kreestate stares at the young Acolyte-Herald that has kept him waiting in the anteroom of the audience chamber of the Chalice of Omri. He relaxes, locking the shielding of his resonance down, as he sees the young woman’s own anger rise, a reflection of his. 

He looks up as a tall male walks out from the audience chamber, his smooth-shaven head the indicator of his position. 

“I’d thank you not to take your failures out on the Omri’s chosen, Senior Inspector,” the Caretaker says dryly, his eyes gazing pure steel at Kreestate.

“Oh, please. You were a shitty flatfoot in the Canol Prefecture. Anybody can shave their head and give themselves a fancy title,” he sneers. 

The Omri-Caretaker, the principle advisor to the protector of Zeltros, a position chosen by ability rather than any resonance-vote or inheritance, merely raises an eyebrow at Kreestate’s rudeness. “Some would say the same about you, Lornan. Some would say that a ‘shitty flatfoot’ carried you back in the Canol.”

He lifts his thumb towards the door he had entered from. “No matter. She’ll see you, now. Try not to be rude to her.”

Lornan slumps. “How is she?” he asks, a gentle tone painting his voice.

The Caretaker purses his lips. “She’s better today. I’ll be glad when the Transfiguration occurs. She’ll be free of this burden and can retire.” He looks directly at the peacekeeper. “Maybe if someone would fulfill the promise that they made and capture Lyshaa, it might ease her mind before the change.”

“I’m actually working on it,” Lornan says shortly. “It would help if you’d send me someone besides jumped-up bailiffs to assist, as well as a Chief Inspector not picking out baby clothes, I might could end this problem, once and for all.”

“I’m a bit concerned about what your definition of ‘once and for all’ might be,” comes a warm voice. 

All in the room turn towards the voice and bow. A tall woman stands in the door, power and strength radiating from her calm beauty. Her always-black eyes take in Lornan and her Caretaker. To someone not of this world, she appears to be in her early forties at the most. Lornan smiles to himself, thinking of the fresh-faced young girl in his primary school laughing at something he had said. Something said when he had actual joy in his life.

Nearly seven decades ago. Before she had been Called to her current station at an impossibly young age. He notices the frosted brown hair, the only slight indicator of her age. At least until the lines had started appearing around her eyes and mouth. She jerks her head at the others. The Caretaker stares warningly at him as he and the Herald leave. 

“Winning friends and influencing people again, I see, Lorn,” Lanadea Stroyan says.

“You aren’t paying me enough to be an interlocutor with this monster, Dea,” he says. 

“Why do I think that you’ve already sentenced her to death?” 

“With all due respect, my Lady, you didn’t see what she did. You didn’t see the slaughter at her family’s home five years ago.” He closes his eyes. “She managed to take down a Jedi—albeit a trainee. She managed to evade two others, although the child’s master was able to wound her. You haven’t seen the destruction she’s wrought, all trying to bring the syndicates to the Land,” he says. 

“All true,” she whispers. “Except for one thing. I didn’t have to see it. I’m the Defender of the Land of Song, Lorn. I felt those people die violently. The fact that it registered in my resonance is enough to tell me that she’s a threat to us. But it’s been our way, since we vanquished the terrors of the Mind-Rippers, that we try to help those who’re in pain.”

He grits his teeth. “She’s not the only one in pain. Your gift—the one that’s failing you in favor of another, is that you’re able to defend our world. You actually last used it a dozen years ago or so when Stark and his pirates came here looking for easy pickings. They found out why we’ve never been conquered.

“Lyshaa is as big of threat to our world as any who’ve come from without. But you aren’t able to use your power against an internal threat. I, and others like me are your bulwarks against those rare occasions. You have to unleash me, just as you did your gift against Iaco Stark in the Hyperspace War.”

She smiles, pulls closer to him and takes him in her arms. “My gift is not a blunt instrument, Lornan Kreestate. I don’t want to use one against her, either.”

He takes a deep breath, then kisses her gently. “We may have to, Dea. She used something on that useless child you sent me. She focused her resonance on him, and the others. I think that she’s been studying the proscribed texts. The texts of the _Bahlan Ki’a_. Those same Mind-Rippers that you talk about vanquishing.”

She falls into thought. He presses his point. “If that’s true, she’s liable for the death penalty—just for reading those damned texts. You know what kind of death is called for, in that case.”

“Yes. I do,” she says. “As the person who would have to, by law, administer that penalty, I’m well aware. It’s been hundreds of years since a judicial mind-ripping. I’m not even sure it’s allowed under the Republic Declaration of Sentient Rights.”

He stares at her, pushing away. “Which is precisely why I have to do what I have to do. Because you don’t have the will to do it.”

“Nor do I have anything other as evidence than your word. Tell me, Senior Inspector, how do you know it was one of the forbidden acts? It needs to be more than just your untrained ‘feelings,’ to sentence someone to that horrible end.”

“It may be a moot point,” she says. “I’ve had Torstan’ii request the aid of the Jedi. Knight Ti and Knight Kenobi are on their way here. The Jedi are also dealing with the problem through her suspected syndicate ties. “

He stares at her, contempt rising. “Great. The same one who let her escape the last time. She looked like death warmed over when I last saw her. I could feel the grief overpowering her. Kenobi, who arrived on the scene just after, was too busy trying to take care of her.”

A harsh smile lights his features. “I know you’ve said that my obsession with Lyshaa has unfocused my resonance. Has torn away my empathy. Maybe it has. Maybe that’s why you secretly picked me, as you’re next to helpless.”

The Chalice looks away for an instant, then looks back at him. He takes a step back at the force of the obsidian gaze. “Is everybody but you, useless or helpless? You had that young probationary Junior Inspector demoted back to being a Bailiff. Only because he lived up to his oath as a peacekeeper and didn’t murder someone.”

“He was weak. The Prefect of his area agreed with me.”

“Only because he owed you a favor. A favor for a failing of his own. That’s why I had the Acolyte-Undersheriff for the Capitoline encourage him to take his retirement.”

Lornan says nothing. He turns and stalks out, not bothering to bow.

Lanadea sighs, rubbing the spot between her eyes. She smiles as she senses another powerful resonance entering the chamber. 

A warm hand touches her bare arm and gives her a tumbler filled with a rich amber liquid. The fumes center her senses as she brings it to her lips, sipping, then downing the aged Corellian whisky.

She turns and looks at the younger woman, a woman uncharacteristically of only less-than-average height, looking up at her and gazing at her with amber eyes under warm blue hair. Lanadea touches her cheek. “You heard?”

Alyysina Faygan nods, her features troubled. “Do you think that the Jedi will capture her?”

“I can only hope, Alyys,” she says. “They’ll capture her and take her to a Republic prison.”

She rests her forehead against her ability-and-resonance-chosen successor. “If they don’t, and we capture her; if it’s true that she is using forbidden arts, it’ll probably fall to you to carry out the sentence. If that happens, you’ll have the shortest tenure as Chalice in history.”

She grins, her expression reducing the leaden atmosphere of that statement. “On a lighter note, your little escape artist actually made it here from Naboo. I’m told that she smells of nerfshit, but is otherwise fine. She’s being held by the freighter’s crew as they make planetfall. I’ve contacted her foster-parents.”

Alyys’s amber eyes roll heavenward. “It’s got to be the damned Corellian half,” she says. 

Their laughter dispels all thoughts of murder and death, if only for a few scattered moments.

+=+=+=+=+=

Shaak opens her eyes from her mediation as the stars slow from their uninterrupted chaos. A beautiful world rests in a canopy of the shuttle, a world of pastel hues that somehow gives off just an inkling of the warmth and joy of its people.

“The last time that you were here, Shaak. Was that your first time?” Obi-Wan asks. 

Ti smiles. “No. I was here for a few months later in my apprenticeship. We were helping to resolve a dispute between the Zeltrons and a Falleen noble house. Even managed to learn the language.”

She senses the question hanging in the air. “Yes, Obi-Wan. I had a few ‘flings’, as Quin would say.” She turns and gives him a hooded look. “One must delve deeply into her treasures.”

Obi-Wan snorts at the mock-serious tone. “I’m sure you delved pretty hard,” he says in his driest Coruscanti inflection. He grows pensive as Ti moves them to approach for atmosphere. “I only spent a day or so here, when—,” he starts. Ti manages not to stiffen. _You can say it, Obi-Wan. When Fe Sun was murdered._

_They’re only words. I no longer flinch when I hear it. My heart doesn’t rip asunder again._

Instead of these words spoken aloud, she says, “Maybe we can wrap this up soon. You can spend a few days here. The joy and warmth of these people are really quite infectious.” She grins, her predator’s teeth exposed. “Not just all the delving.”

“Is it true that they’ve never been conquered? Why is that?”

Ti is silent for a moment. Her brief time here with Fe Sun, attempting to capture Lyshaa, had revealed to her a few secrets of how they had managed it. She recalls her brief meeting with the Chalice of Omri; the defender of the world as a padawan. The woman’s eyes, permanently dark, or _pra-Modula_ in the language of the world, had hidden many secrets—open to her people, but partially concealed to offworlders. Even those who would defend the world.

“Let’s just say that they have a strong tie to this world,” she says. “Maybe even a strong tie to one aspect of the Living Force.”

Obi-Wan’s face in the new beard is solemn as he contemplates this. They are both lost in thought as she brings the ship in for a landing. 

Ti watches Obi-Wan’s face as he once again takes in the light, airy architecture—a view he probably had not had time to enjoy the last time, when he had gone directly from his ship to her side, just as Fe Sun was being struck down. He turns fully around, then brings his eyes down to the small groups of Zeltrons visible from the landing platform. He smiles as he sees their laughter, their light clothing, generally displaying a great deal of the spectrum of red skin. Ti shares his smile as he takes in the various ages and body types going about their business. She also notices that the warmth of the people seem to be affecting him as much as it is her. She allows the warmth to flow through her, not fighting it, but concentrating on the moment at hand.

“Do they grow old?” he asks in wonder, his voice catching slightly.

Ti nods. “Yes, they do. Their life span can run anywhere from 150 to 175 standard years. They can remain active for most of that span.” She smiles. “Their children mature about the same as humans, maybe a tiny bit earlier.”

She stops, her emotions falling. The two times that she had spent on the world before; the experience she had with the empathic resonance tells her that not all is as it seems. 

Obi-Wan stares at her. “You sense it, too,” he says. “There is a dark tinge to the joy.”

“Yes, there is, Master Jedi,” a new voice says. 

They both turn to the sound. A Zeltron male, about Obi-Wan’s age or younger—at least as near as they can tell—stands at a speeder with an official looking emblem on its side. He is clad in the only neutral colors that they had seen on the world; a medium gray tunic and trousers that leaves his arms bare. 

The amber eyes of the young man look them both up and down. Both Jedi look at one another as they sense some of the tempering of his emotions. Ti notices that he focuses on Kenobi, only a trifle more than he does on her.

“I’m Acolyte-Bailiff Gorlute. I’m to take you to the Chief Inspector.”

“Has anything transpired in the last few hours?”

Gorlute gives a strange smile. “You could say that,” he says. He glances down at his uniform. 

Ti notices that he wears a blaster on his hip—something that ordinary Bailiffs do not usually carry.

As they board the speeder, she notices Obi-Wan’s troubled glance at the peacekeeper. 

+=+=+=+=+=

Lyshaa, a woman who had abandoned her family name when she killed them, sits watching the docking bay for the fourth day in a row at the same appointed time. Her eyes narrow under the visi-screen of the mantle that covers her face and most of her upper body. She looks down at the multi-hued garment; a garment loud in its colors, but one of the only ways in which she could cover her face in the Capitoline shire.

She looks down and stares at her reflection in the datapad on the table. If she could see herself past the disguise, she would see an attractive young woman with a mild expression on her face. If she could look deeper, she would see the half-sneer twisting her lips; the lifeless eyes of one who could never again exercise the _modula_ —the dark eyed harbinger of strong emotion in her people. She would see the healing scar through her right eyebrow—the gift of the master of the Jedi whelp she had managed to kill.

She smiles slightly as she lifts the bottom of the hood to sip the ice water. As she does, the pain knifes through her head. Pain that had only begun when she had returned to Zeltros after a months-long absence. In fact, they had only begun two days ago, when the thug of a cop thought that he had her cornered with his so-called honey trap

She sees several people at the tables around her, look around, then hastily leave their meals. The smile grows under the mantle. While she felt nothing of others’ emotions in her resonance, she had discovered at an early age that she had no problem projecting hers upon them. 

She sees her mother’s soundless scream in her mind’s eye as she is overwhelmed. As always, she feels nothing when she remembers that night, over five years ago. A night in which she was reborn in her true calling.

She focuses on a second night, only a few months ago. Luring the Jedi pair to Zeltros; allowing them to track her there.

She had killed a Jedi, but it hadn’t been enough to overcome the Fallen prejudice of the Underlord of Black Sun. The old creature had merely looked at her with disgust and remarked upon the fact that she had killed a student; while being bested by a grief-stricken master.

Five years as a servant of the Pykes before that; she had never been able to rise above enforcer on Kessel. Lyshaa smiles. She had been able to learn a great deal, before she had slaughtered the squad sent to retrieve her.

Only a minion of Xizor, a vigo of Black Sun, but a Prince of the Falleen in his own right had shown interest. An uncle of his, a stunted half-human, half-Falleen named Thittan had expressed interest in her—enough for an audience. She recalls his piercing blue eyes in a softer version of the Falleen countenance, the ubiquitous topknot of hair sprouting through a thatch of brown hair covering his skull.

He had not looked at her with the normal disgust of his kind for Zeltrons.

She comes back from her reverie as she sees two Acolyte-Bailiffs watching her closely. One’s eyes flit down to the datapad. Lyshaa curses to herself. _This sect doesn’t use technology in public. It’s a sacred act._

She smiles to herself; reaches into the large bag. She feels the coolness of the cylindrical metal object. Lyshaa lifts it, her thumb caressing the small button on the top.


	4. To Beguile You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> History. An officer’s duty. The Hunt. The lower ground.

Ti follows the young officer into a small office. As always, she marvels that even a mundane, usually antiseptic facility such as a security station, can be turned by the Zeltrons into a light, beautiful example of their building arts. 

Her eyes widen as the woman stands from behind the table. She is the usual tall, willowy example of the species, but with a dark shade of gold hair piled haphazardly in a loose bun on her head. She gazes at Ti and Kenobi with a shrewd, searching expression in her green eyes, set in her crimson face. In spite of the warmth emanating from her, just as from all they had met, her eyes are the eyes of a cop the universe over. Searching for any sign of danger or deception. The eyes turn a bit softer; they crease in pain as she puts her hands at the small of her back and stretches backward.

Ti sees Kenobi’s eyes widen as he takes in the swelling belly on display in the brief top she wears under a flowing coat; the belly of a mother-to-be. _Very soon to be a mother, quite possibly_ , Ti thinks.

The woman sees them looking at her, then straightens, her hands falling to her side. She allows a warm smile to play over her lips, as well as her eyes. 

She holds her hand out to each of them in turn. “I’m Kanylynaan na’ Torstan’ii. Acolyte-Chief Inspector of Inquiries for the Shire of the Capitoline. It’s an honor to meet you both,” she finishes. She brings her other hand up and clasps Ti’s hand tightly for a moment. “I’m sorry for your loss, Knight Ti. I was offworld when it happened; hadn’t come into this position yet. Your padawan was extremely brave. A credit to you and the Jedi.”

Ti gazes at her for a moment. She feels the warmth of the woman’s hand against hers, slightly warmer than a human’s, just as hers is slightly cooler. She feels the warmth carry through from just a touch of the woman’s empathic resonance—nothing intrusive, just enough to push back the remaining twinge of rawness of her loss behind its wall. 

She grits her teeth, pushes back against the grief. _There is no emotion, only peace_ , flits through her mind. She gives a brief smile and a nod. The officer releases her hand, then motions for them to sit. Ti ignores Kenobi’s narrowed eyes on her, the concern emanating from him.

“Thank you, Chief Inspector,” she says calmly. “Your officer gave us the latest on Lyshaa. It’s troubling that she seems to be able to project her emotions in such a powerful way. I know from my past times here that in extreme situations, usually in self-preservation, your people can use the resonance offensively. On very rare occasions. But not to the power that he described.”

na’Torstan’ii smiles. “Your research does you credit. Knight Ti. You’re correct. According to other witnesses and our healers, it seemed to affect almost an entire city block. Many people went to our medical facilities, complaining of overspill sickness.” She looks at Gorlute, nods at him with sympathy.

Ti sees him look away. Kanylynaan smiles. “I almost forgot, Jaten,” she says. “Lyndia called. She said to tell you that she’s proud of you, no matter what.”

Gorlute looks away, his face flushing, but not with anger. He nods. “I’ve tried to stop her from calling you, Chief. I know you’re busy.”

The senior peacekeeper’s smile grows warmer. “Never you mind. It’s time for your lunch. Go to her. Spend some time with your little sister. When you get back, you can take Knight Kenobi to the crime scene from the other night.”

Ti’s forehead crinkles as she sees Kenobi watching the byplay. _Well, at least one side of it_. She smiles slightly at the thoughtful look on his face as he watches Jaten salute and leave.

The Chief Inspector turns back to them with no comment, her face returning to its professional mask, as if it was nothing for a senior officer to concern herself with a low-ranking officer’s little sister. 

“I think that the officers involved can tell you more than I can,” she says. Her face turns with a dark expression. “Senior Inspector Kreestate will fill you in.”

Ti files the expression away for the future. 

“Could you tell me how you and Padawan Fe Sun wound up back here, Knight Ti? Your report didn’t say a lot.”

Ti nods. “Certainly, Chief Inspector na’Torstann’ii. I can’t go into a great deal of detail; as the source is protected—one of our Shadows. They were able to infiltrate a small crime syndicate on Naboo that was doing business with the Falleen. Fortunately, the Shadow paid attention to other things. A, well, _contact_ led him to Lyshaa’s trail.” She ignores Obi-Wan’s grimace at that word.

The officer nods thoughtfully. “This will go faster, if you just call me Kanyly,” she says absently. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Ti doesn’t answer. Obi-Wan takes up the story. “Yes, ah, Kanyly. The Shadow learned that the information was planted. By Lyshaa, to draw a Jedi to Zeltros. He managed to contact me, but couldn’t warn Master Ti. I came immediately, but it was too late.”

“Lyshaa was trying to prove something,” Kanyly says. 

“Yes,” Ti says. “She was auditioning. By ambushing and killing a Jedi.”

The room falls silent. Kanyly grimaces, rubs her belly. “She has a habit of testing. There was evidence from a diary left at the scene of her family’s murders, that she was trying to discover what the emotions would feel like.”

She locks eyes with Ti. “She didn’t feel anything,” the officer says flatly.

Kanyly’s comm goes off with an emergency tone. They can hear other comms sounding as well. She glances at it. “They’ve found her. The Lovers’s Square. Only a couple of blocks over.”

As they all stand, a rumbling shudder moves through the building. The floor shifts, then rights as the sound of an explosion catches up to the shaking. 

The three of them look at each other. Ti sees Kanyly open a drawer and pull a blaster in its holster out, sticking it on her hip.

Ti and Obi-Wan are out the door; the mother-to-be and her blaster following close behind.

+=+=+=+=+=

Lornan Kreestate rushes through the streets of the Capitoline, pushing masses of people away as they run towards him. Away from trouble, as he runs towards it. At no time does his mind criticize his people for their fear and panic. It is not their job, indeed, their place in the world to run towards danger.

It has always been his. 

As he closes on the small, intimate square that the people are streaming from, his eyes take in the tables and chairs tossed about, the remnants of smoke and a tiny bit of residual heat rising from the area. His eyes lock on two figures lying on the ground near the entrance.

_No other casualties_ , the cop-part of his brain tells him. His eyes narrow at the figure standing over one of them. He snarls as he sees Lyshaa wiping a blade on the supine officer’s civilian coat. He draws his blaster and yells, in one swift motion. He isn’t sure what he yells, whether it is in basic or his own language. He opens fire just as a civilian pokes her head up above the short wall behind. His shot chips the stone near her head. He manages to clear a table in his path, bringing his blaster back down as Lyshaa clears the wall and opens up her speed again. 

He is about to squeeze the trigger again when the blaster is yanked from his hand. He curses and turns to his right as he sees two Jedi running up, their robes dropping as if in unison. He sees the Togruta Jedi snatch his blaster from the air and immediately drop it on the ground. Both of them arc towards Lyshaa’s path, lightsabers flying into their hands, but remaining sheathed. 

Lornan clinches his teeth as he slows to a halt besides the two peacekeepers. One is already dead; the other lies moaning, blood sleeping from his ears.

_Concussion grenade?_ he thinks. His eyes track upward to where the Jedi have followed Lyshaa. 

“Kreestate! What the hell are you doing?” he hears from behind. He turns as he sees Kanyly exiting a vehicle, her blaster drawn in one hand, her other on her belly as she grimaces with pain.

He makes a decision; he turns away from his superior. He reaches down to his ankle, pulling the backup blaster from its concealment, then takes off after the pair. 

Lornan ignores Kanyly na’Torstann’ii’s curses and shouts for him to stop. As he approaches an alleyway, he realizes that the two Jedi and their quarry are nowhere to be seen.

He stops, gathering himself. He breathes in once, then out; repeats the motion. He feels the strange sense of peace come over him. He holsters his blaster, then reaches into the pocket of his suit trousers, his hand closing around a small box. 

An onlooker would see a now-calm, but determined look on his face, his pale blue eyes transitioning to the black. Without a word, he turns and calmly walks in a different direction. He enters a small building, allowing his feet to lead him into a small room. 

He takes a deep breath, his mind centering on his next move.

+=+=+=+=+=

Ti easily follows Lyshaa through the winding alleyways. All of her pain, all of her memories of Fe Sun’s light fading from their training bond, disappear for the moment in the exhilaration of the Hunt—the actual chase, when the quarry is within the huntress’s grasp.

She shakes her head as she increases her speed. _You’re not going to cut her teeth out, Ti_ , she thinks to herself. A warm presence makes itself known as she finishes the thought. 

_No huntress, but you are going to try to cut the hatred out_. 

Ti stops her Force-sprint for a moment, she jerks off of her feet as Obi-Wan plows into her from behind.

She looks back at him, sees his widened eyes turn to fire. “What’re you doing, Ti? Let’s go.”

Ti closes her eyes for a moment. The Mother’s purring sibilance centers her mind. _Find the hatred, my sister_ , the _akul_ says in her mind. Her eyes snap open; she jinks down an alley to her left. 

“Ti! Wait, she’s—,” Kenobi starts, pointing to their front.

“Follow me,” she says tersely. She ignores the mutterings from younger knight as he pulls up slightly behind her. She manages to catch a glimpse of a boot entering a building—a housing unit, by the looks of it. Ti stops again, gathers herself.

“I’ve got the high ground, Obi-Wan,” she says, springing upwards, leaving him in her dust. “Stick to the streets!”she yells as she arcs upwards to the roof.

Ti doesn’t wait for his reply. She lands on the roof, twenty stories up. She only takes a moment to orient herself, then starts across the wide expanse of the permacrete. In a dozen seconds, she sees her quarry, below her as she herself seemingly walks on air. 

Lyshaa is running through the transparisteel skyway that stretches to the next several high buildings, over a series of lower, older structures. 

She realizes that she is only a few steps behind Lyshaa. She flips her lightsaber to a reverse grip, something that she rarely, if ever, uses. Her mind moves to the activation stud. Just as the blue plasma erupts, Lyshaa happens to look back. Her unique crimson-purple eyes lock with Ti’s violet ones. A glance downward shows Ti that Lyshaa is slowing, favoring her right ankle. Ti slides to a stop, raising her saber above her head, her left hand joining her right. She starts the arc to bring the point of the saber down on the roof of the skyway.

She immediately switches her blade to her left hand to block the bolts coming up through the roof. The roof—her floor— starts to quiver. The bolts continue to burst through the transparisteel.

The material spiderwebs, a cracking, roaring sound penetrating Ti’s montrals. She realizes, the thought invading her consciousness as if from a distance, that transparisteel doesn’t spiderweb. 

The completion of the thought hits her just as her body connects with the floor of the skyway. She rolls off of her hip and manages to dodge the continuing fusillade of bolts. Her saber, which she had actually lost, flies back into her hand as the blade ignites and immediately turns purple with the strikes of the bolts. 

Ti manages to keep control of the bolts, avoiding sending them back to their origin. “Give up, Lyshaa,” she says. “You can’t win.”

“Did a pretty good job against your whelp,” Lyshaa spits, along with blood from a glass puncture on her lip. Ti realizes that both of them are bleeding from dozens of small cuts from where the glass had shattered. 

She shifts her grip slightly, sending the oncoming bolt into Lyshaa’s blaster. The young woman yelps as she drops the mangled blaster, an instant before it explodes, the flash and smoke knocking both of them back. 

Ti rises to her feet, having made herself as small as possible—as small as a nearly two-meter huntress could make herself. As she advances, her anger rises at the destruction around her. At the death and the waste. She clinches her sharp teeth, drawing blood from her lip, centering her anger on the pain. 

She doesn’t see the smoke; or feel the wind blowing through the shattered roof. She senses the taste of ashes in her mouth. 

Ti only sees two people; the images flashing as if a slideshow of holopics, alternating to and fro.

Fe Sun’s eyes fading, their bright light cutting through her as her padawan leaves her. 

Lyshaa’s eyes laughing, their glee almost palpable at Ti’s pain. She realizes that her saber is no longer in her hand, again. Without thought, she reaches down, shoving one side of her skirt away from her bare leg, her hands closing on the hunting knife strapped to her thigh. A blade of her people, constructed with the aid of the huntstead Ironmonger, under the watchful eye of her chosen Hunt-mother. Only a few short months after she had built her lightsaber under the watchful eyes of a more mechanical mentor. 

A third image comes to her mind. An image of the same blade biting into Lyshaa’s throat, the dark blood gushing on Ti’s hands. She focuses on that image, as a insurmountable pressure squeezes her mind. She drops to her knees, the pain rising. She manages to fight her way to her feet. As she starts to advance, she hears a noise like a child’s marble rolling along the floor from the fading smoke. A small cylindrical object, bouncing over the remains of both Lyshaa’s blaster and the glass ceiling trundles to her feet and stops. 

Ti leaps forward, hoping that the shred of her Force sense that she can connect with her pain is enough to propel her forward. Her booted feet each touch the ground, once, twice. She holds her hand back, one thread of the Force reaching out, sensing the cool metal of her lightsaber, forcing it to trail behind her as she closes on the exit. 

Sound and air are sucked out of the skyway an instant after the noise of the explosion rips through her montrals. She feels herself surging forward even faster, as her Force-sense latches onto the expanding pressure wave, pushing most of the energy away from her.

The last thing she sees is Lyshaa stopped, on her knees, her hands encircling her head, a silent scream emitting from her mouth, as her fists clench in her hair.

As if trying to yank an unseen, intense pressure from her brain. 

_I know the feeling_ , Ti thinks as she falls with the skyway.

+=+=+=+=+=

Obi-Wan stifles a curse as Ti leaps. He opens his mind, locking onto the bright light of the tracking huntress. He turns and starts to weave his way though back alleys of the housing units, following as best he can, his fellow Jedi at a lower altitude.

As he does, a very slight tickling sensation touches the back of his neck, under the now-longer hair. A sensation that recalls a time when he had much shorter hair, other than his padawan braid. He feels his eyes widen as he struggles to identify the sensation. His body starts to go cold as just an inkling, a memory, breaks loose from the catalogue of his mind. He stops, his Force-sense reeling. He feels the grip on his lightsaber slacken. His mind’s eye locks on the vision of Qui-Gon Jinn’s face going blank as the red blade of the saberstaff penetrates his chest. That view is pushed away by the last glimpse of Qui-Gon’s aquiline profile on his pyre. 

He realizes that he is on his knees as sound and light flow back into his other senses—the ones that are not unique to he and only ten thousand or so others. The sensation is gone, fleeting, now replaced by an overwhelming sense of despair. 

_Sithkiller_ whispers in the deepest recesses of his mind. He shakes his head against the darkness. Darkness touched by something else—something unidentifiable. He notices that his saber is resting on the ground in front of him, as if at mediation. Obi-Wan shoves the palms of his hands into his eyes, rubbing them. He stands, seeing throngs of people rushing on a perpendicular path, streaming out of the buildings of the apartment complex.

Throngs of people guided by Acolyte-Bailiffs, calmly directing them to safe zones. 

After the sensations, he can only hope that the zones will be far enough, and that the peacekeepers are calm enough. He rises to his feet, his lightsaber leaping into his hand. He senses a presence behind him. _Two presences, actually_.

Kanyly rushes up to him, one hand on her abdomen, puffing gently, but her face set and determined; the blaster held firmly in her right hand. 

“Keep getting your people away,” he says. His eyebrow raises as he sees that her green eyes have shifted to an almost obsidian color; her crimson skin is a much deeper hue. “You need to keep them and your officers away, Kanyly,” he says. “There’s something darker at play here.”

She nods. “I feel it. Intense hatred and anger,” she says in her lightly accented voice. “The same thing that Jaten Gorlute talked about at the other scene.”

Obi-Wan turns. “I don’t want to suggest that you are any weaker because of your pregnancy, Chief Inspector,” he says over his shoulder, “but if this is what I think it is, you don’t want to expose your child to it.”

Her reply is cut off as he leaps to the roof to follow Ti.

Obi-Wan doesn’t land on his feet. As he rubs his ass, after standing, he looks around, hoping that no one hand seen his unceremonious dumping on the roof. _Got to work on Force-jumping some more, Padawan Kenobi_ , he hears in the Tattooine-dry tones of Jinn. 

Thoughts of his master are shoved away, as he feels the reverberations and sounds of blasterfire. He looks to his front, just in time to see Ti fall through the roof of the skyway. He surges forward, then jinks to the right as energy bolts strike near his feet. His saber instinctively comes up, blocking more of the bolts from above. 

He glances up, seeing a dark hooded figure, wearing some sort of armor, on a speederbike, firing a heavy blaster at him. Obi-Wan purses his lips, sending the penultimate bolt into one of the steering surfaces of the bike, which, incongruously bears the shield of the peacekeepers on its side. The bike and its aggressor flit away. 

The roof under his feet starts to shake, to vibrate, a loud ripping noise cutting through his gut. A microsecond later, the shattering noise of an sharp explosion overpowers the ripping noise, the speed of sound jumbling his hearing.

Obi-Wan finds himself at the lip of the roof, as the skyway collapses. He is conscious of Ti’s quarry managing to move into the next building as the skyway disintegrates around her. 

He watches in shock as Shaak Ti is dumped from the falling skyway. Obi-Wan sees her cartwheeling through the air. 

If asked, he wouldn’t be able to answer as to why he leapt from the precipice, his Force-sense reaching out in two directions. He feels the sensation of the cool skin of Ti’s shoulder, and then the other on the stone of the other roof’s wall. He finds himself somersaulting upwards as his Force-grasp firms its touch on a steel beam sticking up. Idly, he wonders what the hell the random girder is for. He shakes the thought away as he straightens and soars to the roof. He hears Ti cry out involuntarily, as her left shoulder, the point of contact with the Force, slips out of joint, just as he lands on the roof. 

He hears Ti uncharacteristically spout an expletive, lengthened as she flies over him. He sees her land on her front, then jump up, moving forward. He starts to yell at her. His eyes widen as her lightsaber and a very large knife follows her, as if a pair of inanimate disciples. 

Obi-Wan stops, and takes a deep breath before following her at his now reduced top speed. 

Ti leaps forward, her left arm hanging useless; coming down on the next roof. He sees her lightsaber join her hand, then, somehow, her left hand joins her right, the blade igniting downward. He sees Lyshaa on her hands and knees, trying to gather herself.

Defenseless. 

“Ti! No!” he screams. The taste of ashes fills his mouth as he starts to leap, his own blade igniting. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a shadow coming in from the sky on his left. His eyes lock on a small object falling from it.

Striking the roof, bouncing three times, then starting a roll towards him. Sound leaves him as the device expends its energy and noise.

His last sensation is of a gray and red blur rushing in from the left, striking his chest, then tumbling away from him, hitting the steel girder sticking up from the roof.

Just as his own head connects with the permacrete.


	5. But I Cannot Refrain from Tendering You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Escape. The bloodflow. Healing. Agony and lament.

Jaten Gorlute crashes into the steel of the upright shrine, his ears ringing from the remnants of the explosion. He slumps to the permacrete of the roof; only allows himself to rest for a moment. He runs his hands over his body, realizes that aside from the sharp pains as he draws every breath, there are no obvious injuries—no puncture wounds that should have resulted from an explosion of that magnitude. 

He manages to jump to his feet. He moves quickly over to the the younger Jedi of the two. He places his hand on Obi-Wan’s chest, feels the even rise and fall just as the Jedi’s eyes close. Jaten looks up as the speederbike roars in for another pass. He feels a large shape pass over him, an instant before his eyes register Shaak Ti leaping over him, her lightsaber ignited and held in both hands.

Jaten feels himself attempting to move as he realizes that Lyshaa is on her hands and knees, attempting to shake off the effects of the stun grenade, as well as the obvious effects of a skyway disintegrating around her. He feels his eyes widen as he sees Ti seem to linger in the air, as if trying to make a decision. Jaten tries to shake the slow-motion perception from his head; the scene tripping his visual senses as if from a great depth in the Endless Ocean. He lifts his right hand, the blaster held firm. At the last second, he flips the selector to ‘S’.

Someone else stops Ti’s thrust for him. His eyes lock on the speederbike swinging in. Ti drops her right hand, leaving her blade in the hand of her injured shoulder, as she comes down at the end of her leap.

Jaten opens fire, the blue concentric rings floating lazily to the speederbike, striking the dark-clad rider. The rider, by appearances a large male, manages to shake the bolts off, as he opens fire with the bike’s blaster cannon. 

Ti, even with an injured arm, expertly deflects the bolts to the roof’s surface, before sending one into the rider’s shoulder, and then into the cannon. She switches her saber to her uninjured hand, as if remembering the pain. As she does, she is forced back by bolts from the blaster in the rider’s own now-injured limb. 

Jaten charges forward as he realizes that the bike, apparently damaged from an earlier encounter, skids beside Lyshaa. The criminal jumps on behind the rider, grabbing his blaster and sending energy in Ti’s direction. 

Jaten switches his blaster to a more lethal setting, as the bike arcs away, the engine laboring under the damage and the added weight of Lyshaa. He adds his own fire to the deflected bolts of Ti, now being directed fully at the pair. He checks his fire as Ti leaps upwards again, managing to find a grip on Lyshaa’s shoulder, knocking the blaster from her hands.

Lyshaa strikes out blindly, her elbow connecting with Ti’s hand before the Jedi can swing her blade. Jaten watches as the lightsaber tumbles through the air, deactivating as it leaves Ti’s hand. Lyshaa is able to turn and punch Ti in the chest, then shift the blows to her face.

The rider manages to clear the rooftop guardrail, crossing over to another, lower building, before the bike strikes that roof with its triple burden. He watches as the rider turns and adds his blows to Ti’s chest—more shoves than blows. The combined strength of the two criminals is finally enough to shove the Jedi from the bike.

“No!” Jaten yells, as he sees Ti cartwheel from the bike. The bike, relieved of at least one extra weight, soars into the air, albeit a soaring that seems to skip with its damaged engine. He can feel the hot anger on his face, a feeling similar to what has been bombarding him since he had come onto the roof. 

The same feeling when he had nearly had Lyshaa in his grasp. He lifts his blaster and opens fire at it, knowing the bike is already out of range. He tosses the blaster to the roof in frustration. 

As he does, the oppressive darkness and anger—a sensation that had wrapped him in an unwanted embrace in its crushing power, vanishes. He slumps to his knees, not even bothering to track the escaping speederbike with its lethal cargo. 

He manages to open his resonance, attempting to find signs of life. He has no desire to move over to the side of the roof, dreading looking at the broken body of the serene Jedi knight, her loss and pain evident even to anyone, even to someone without the gifts of his people.

Once again a shadow flows over the top of his vision. His eyes lock on Shaak Ti, her left arm once again dangling at her side. He sees her bare shoulder over her singlet; the malformation of the joint at the apex of the useless limb. Her face and chest are covered with tiny wounds, the blood now clotting. 

Dreading what he would see, he focuses on her face. The raw pain knocks him back as his resonance locks on her emotions. He sees her violet eyes glistening with slight liquid. 

She shakes her head, sending the pain to the background of her emotional signature. 

Ti looks down at Obi-Wan, who is groaning. For an instant, he feels the pain and regret move to the forefront. Another emotion is present as well. 

_Shame._

A brief second; it is gone, replaced by the serenity he had sensed earlier, a serenity with an underlying humor, present even in her grief. 

The humor is no longer present. 

Ti holds her right hand out, her eyes closing. He feels _something_ —something he can’t identify. A second, and the undefinable is gone. An instant before her lightsaber flies into her hand, from wherever it had fallen.

She hangs the weapon on her belt. The body aspect of his Zeltron soul, the _dere_ , is treated to the sight of her moving her skirt aside, returning a large knife to a sheath on the length of her thigh. 

Her eyes lock on his; a brief microburst of the humor in her eyes at his gaze.

It flees. She nods at Kenobi. “Take care of him,” is all that she says. 

She turns on her heel and is gone.

+=+=+=+=+=

Obi-Wan screams as the red blade of the saberstaff sprouts from his chest, the fire erupting through every nerve in his body. He screams as Maul pulls the blade to his left, slicing through his sternum. He feels the blood begin to boil in his chest as the Sith pulls the blade from him, twirling it in a spasm of light. Obi-Wan’s eyes lock on Maul’s yellow eyes in his expressionless face. Obi-Wan realizes that he is still standing, the hand holding his own blade refusing to obey the command to bring the weapon up.

Another of burst of crimson light and he feels himself falling. He sees the lower half of his body tumbling over his eyes. The impact shatters every bone in his body still connected to his brain. Somehow, he manages to turn his head to the left. His heart clinches as Qui-Gon’s eyes stare at him, fixing on him accusingly. He realizes that Qui-Gon’s arm is around a smaller, unmoving figure, a thatch of blonde hair with a padawan braid hanging loosely, a burn in the center of the back.

Obi-Wan watches helplessly as the vision begins again; facing Maul in the power station. The pain builds again to its crescendo. 

It stops. The burning fire is replaced by a slowly growing warmth. Warmth that eases the ache in his heart, as well as in his head. He becomes aware of growing light in his vision and sounds in his hearing. Calm light; calm noise—no longer the screaming of his mind, nor the blaster fire and the lightsaber hum; the explosions of varying levels of ordnance. 

He realizes that the warmth is moving even into the ache, grasping it gently, massaging it to a pinprick.

His heartrate slows as he feels a soft touch on his temple and warm lips on his.

_Wait, lips?_

His eyes snap open, just in time to see Jaten Gorlute pulling back from his head. His heartrate increases again, but for a different reason. Jaten’s eyes return to their normal color, a warm amber-gold. The officer smiles and nods.

Obi-Wan jerks up, looking around him. Ti is nowhere to be found. He manages to rise to his feet, but staggers as he realizes that the blood has rushed from his head. He happens to look down. 

Ruefully, he figures out where the blood has pooled. He notices Jaten watching him, the half-smile still on his face. 

“Always wanted to be a healer,” Gorlute says. “Tested well for it, but all that science and math sank me.”

Obi-Wan feels himself blush. He pulls the skirt of his tabard over his front. “You mean you just healed a head injury with a kiss?”

Jaten shakes his head, emphatically. “No,” he starts. “Don’t have the skill. Nobody can really heal with a touch, not even our best healers. We can ease pain a bit; that’s about the limit. I need to get you to a healer/doctor to get you fixed. The easing will fade shortly.”

“I need to get to Ti,” Obi-Wan says suddenly. He turns, pulling his saber towards him, hanging it on his belt.

“She just left,” Jaten says, taking his arm over his. As they walk towards the stairs, Obi-Wan is acutely aware of the peacekeeper’s body against his.

Every centimeter. 

They cover several landings before Jaten stops. Ti stands on one landing, her eyes fixed on the wall. Obi-Wan feels his anger rise. He manages to still it before he touches Ti on her shoulder. 

She turns, her violet eyes blank. 

“What was that, Shaak? You were about to murder a helpless person.” He can’t bring himself to use the word ‘innocent’ to describe Lyshaa. 

Ti looks at him, as if seeing him for the first time. “Worry about yourself, Obi-Wan. I can deal with my own problems.”

“Dammit, Ti,” he starts. “It’s not just your problem. I felt something up there. Something I haven’t felt in a year. I think everybody in a three-kilometer radius felt it, they just probably couldn’t identify what it was.”

He drops his hand from her shoulder. “It was the Dark Side. I know it well, apparently.”

Ti’s anger flares. Obi-Wan steps back, his hand involuntarily going to his weapon. Ti sees the movement, her eyes focusing on his. After a moment, she nods. He drops his hand; feeling the anger fall away. With none of the oppressive darkness from the fight remaining.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Obi-Wan?” she asks quietly. 

He looks away. He can feel Jaten walk up beside him, touching his arm. 

“It’s why the Council approved you going,” he says. “I told them that I would care for you and make sure you stay in the light.” He closes his eyes.

“I think that Rancisis and some of the others only approved because of….what I did on Naboo, last year,” he says. 

She reaches up and brings her hand to his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here,” she whispers. “For many reasons, Obi-Wan.”

“For Force’s sake, Ti!” he yells. “I’m here to kill you, if you fall. That’s what those damned hardliners think. They’re seeing Sith under their pillows.” He calms, cursing himself. He takes a step back, stumbles. 

Ti is there before even Jaten. She pulls his arm over her uninjured right shoulder. They begin to move down the stairs. 

“I felt the darkness, too, Obi-Wan. It was oppressive. I feel like it was fighting every centimeter of my body. But it was strange.” She falls silent, concentrating on their slow movements. “It wasn’t coming from me,” she finishes. 

Jaten looks at them both from the other side of Obi-Wan. “I don’t know about this ‘dark side’ you both seem to be talking about. I felt it when we tried to take her before. We all seem to think that she might have been studying some forbidden arts; that she has enhanced her resonance.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “It didn’t feel like that to me. It definitely seemed Force-bound.”

They all fall silent as they walk out onto the street. Flashing strobe lights from security vehicles and medical transports can be seen all over the square of the housing complex.

Jaten directs them both over to one. One where Obi-Wan sees Kanyly na’ Torstan’ii standing talking to a male Zeltron. Or, rather, listening, her eyes flashing as he dresses her down.

“…I can’t believe you were so stupid to go charging off into an active tactical situation. You’re only a few days away—.”

She pushes towards the male, her own height close to his. He stares at her, his muscled arms in his dress undertunic immediately going to his hips. A dark brown mustache twitches with fury.

“Your concerns are noted, Chief Justiciar,” Kanyly says. “But since you’re just an advisor to the _Zoetarch_ , you have no say in how I do my job.”

“You do know that the _Zoetarch_ is the resonance-elected ruler of this world?” he asks dryly. 

“How can I not? You never let me forget it.”

His own, lighter crimson skin flushes darker. His arms cross his chest. 

She doesn’t flinch. “So, since you’re an advisor, it means that you can’t tell me shit. I can tell you to kiss my ass and some of those layers between me and the ruler will back me. Especially with the _zkat_ hitting the _rleg_ the way that it is.

“You’re not in my chain of command, Chief Justiciar,” she repeats. Her own arms go across her chest.

“But I am,” comes a quiet voice. 

Obi-Wan and Ti unconsciously rotate together. Another tall woman stands to their right. She appears to be older than the other Zeltrons present, but it is always difficult to tell. Obi-Wan sees Ti unconsciously bowing to the woman, clad in a flowing white gown, covered by a dark purple cloak. A mantle in the same color covers her salt and pepper hair.

A male with a shaven head, dressed in a long robe, stands slightly behind her.

Obi-Wan notices that the others, Jaten included, are bowing to her, their left hand to the forehead.

She walks over to Kanyly and the official. She touches Kanyly’s cheek, then draws her lips to hers. She places her hands on the officer’s swollen belly. “Go to the healers. Get checked out, dear,” she says quietly. She smiles, the warmth easing her words. “Make sure my soul-daughter is strong.”

Words spoken quietly, but with authority behind the words. Kanyly looks as if to argue, but falls silent.

The woman turns and touches the Justiciar on his forehead, smoothing the furrowed lines. 

Kanyly allows two figures dressed in white smocks to lead her away. She stops and turns for a moment. “We can’t find Kreestate, My Lady Chalice,” she says to the woman.

The Justiciar nods and answers for the woman. “We’ll keep looking.” He turns to another officer and nods. He watches as Kanyly walks away. For an instant, Obi-Wan sees deep pain and concern in his blue eyes.

“As for my two Jedi,” the woman says. “I think that you’ll need to see our healers as well.” She gestures behind him. A young woman, dressed in the same white smock as the ones who had led the Chief Inspector away, walks up. 

Obi-Wan is conscious of a mischievous smile and a deep cleft in the chin, brown hair piled haphazardly in a bun. She appears to be in her late teens or very early twenties.

“This is Sina. She’s one of our most promising apprentice healers. She’ll be starting medical school in the fall, to go along with her apprenticeship,” the Chalice says. “Obviously an underachiever,”she says dryly. She looks directly at Obi-Wan. “She’ll take good care of you, Knight Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan allows his eyes to widen at her knowledge of his name. 

The Chalice, as Kanyly had called her, takes Ti’s uninjured arm in hers. “We’ll have a healer for you as well, Knight Ti. But first, I’d like to talk to you a bit.”

Obi-Wan watches as they walk to an aircar. He turns to the healer. Her full eyebrows rise slightly at his look.

The young woman touches his forehead. “You have an exceptionally hard head, Jedi Kenobi,” she says in a warm voice. The mischief can be heard kilometers away.

“So I’ve been told,” he says. “Bailiff Gorlute was kind enough to give me some first aid, as it were.”

She turns and watches as the peacekeeper walks away. Obi-Wan notices that her eyes track downward.

Just as his does. He shakes his head as she notices him watching as well.

“He’s not exactly an expert. Let me guess. You feel like you need a cold shower,” she says. 

He doesn’t respond, looking away. 

Sina grins again. “It’s not always supposed to do that,” she says. “Experts can heal without any residual, ah, swelling.”

“I’m just going to do a scan when we get you to the medstation. I think you have a mild concussion, but we’ll make sure you don’t have a slow leak up there in the old hard drive.”

He nods. “Very well. But please try to refrain from using the word ‘hard’,” he says. 

She reaches up and touches his cheek. The warmth of her touch causes another spike in breathing. 

“As you wish.” The grin broadens. “But if you like, I am a trained professional. I can add a little something extra to the healing.”

He tries to ignore the fact that her pink tongue lingers on her lips as they move to the transport.

+=+=+=+=+=

Ti steps out of the aircar; the Chalice once again gives her an arm. The sense of the woman is that she is of great age, but she looks only a little older than Ti’s thirty-odd years. They move into a small, plain building that rests next to a larger, but still plainly designed example. She smiles to herself. _If anything can be said to be plain on this world_ , she thinks.

They enter into a small, comfortable sitting room. Two young women, both clad in a shorter version of the same pale gown as the Chalice wait patiently. The Chalice turns Ti around, then pulls her into her arms. After a moment, Ti relaxes. She notices that the woman’s eyes are continuously a full obsidian. Ti takes a deep breath. She rolls her eyes at the increased heartrate, even from Togruta-speed.

The Chalice notices. “Live in the moment, Shaak Ti,” she says. Ti slumps in the woman’s arms. She feels the warmth pervade through her body—not just her center, but her mind. She closes her eyes, feels herself being put in a comfortable seat, her back lying against the pillow. 

She doesn’t protest as the singlet is removed. She feels her rear lek moving against the chair. The Chalice maintains her hold on her, moving her hands down. Ti’s mind vaguely registers that another pair of hands move on her dislocated shoulder. The pain, which had mysteriously diminished as the Chalice had kept her hands on her in the ride, disappears almost completely. 

Ti opens her eyes, her mind suddenly focused. She feels the Acolyte’s hands move away. She looks up into the young woman’s eyes. A smile paints on her elfin features as her hands linger on Ti’s cheeks. She moves away, allowing Ti’s eyes to lock with the Chalice’s. She moves her gaze down to her shoulder.

The arm is no longer out of joint. She had never felt the reduction; the gentle moving back into place, rather than a violent battlefield twist. She lifts her arm and moves it through the joint. 

_Maybe not fully ready for gymnastics,_ she thinks as a spike of pain lances her. She hears a musical laugh from her right, where the Chalice has joined her.

She nods her thanks to the healer, whose smile grows as she turns away. 

“I think someone might be in a little awe of you, Master Jedi,” the Chalice says. “I think you have that effect on people.”

She strokes the back of Ti’s hand, then reaches over and touches her lips to Ti’s. For a moment, Ti marvels at the contact; the warmth of these people. Her eyes widen as a gentle touch of a tongue moves across her lips. She hears a giggle from the healer, moving away. 

Ti’s smile freezes on her face. She looks away, the hole in her heart growing. 

“I was going to say, you have that effect, especially with young people.”

_There it is._

“I saw you with your apprentice, when you first arrived. Even two minutes from a distance and I could see the impact you had on that young woman. The look of admiration, tempered with her own growing confidence. You gave her that, Ti,” she finishes.

Ti is silent. “I don’t really want to talk about Fe Sun, my lady Chalice,” she says, her tone even, if her emotions aren’t.

Her companion smiles again. “If we’re going to be sitting this close, with your shirt off, you can at least call me Dea, Shaak,” she says.

Ti feels the crimson cylinders on her forehead climbing into her headdress as she looks down. She smiles and then shrugs. 

“Dea. I can’t talk about my losses,” Ti continues. “I have to focus. I have to capture Lyshaa.”

Dea’s always-black eyes narrow. “For what? So you can kill her?”

“No!” Ti shouts, starting to rise. She feels Dea’s warm hand on her bare arm. She sits and gathers herself. “No,” she says in a calmer tone. “Because I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I have.”

Dea continues to stroke her arm. “Then you want to ease your pain. That’s why you almost murdered her.”

Ti clinches her teeth, not just at Dea’s single minded-ness, but at the fact that she somehow knows what had happened on the roof. “My pain is unimportant in the grand scheme of things,” she says. “I am a Jedi. There is no emotion, only peace,” she intones.

Dea nods. “I’m no Jedi, but I’ve studied certain of your precepts. The version I’ve heard says that there is emotion, yet peace.”

Ti acknowledges her with a slight nod. “That is a version, from the before times. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure where the new version came from.”

“If you want talk about your pain, then tell me of the encounter with Lyshaa today. What did you feel?”

Ti lifts up a prepared glass of water from the end table. “I don’t know how to describe it. I was chasing her, then I was hit with an incredible wave of darkness. Something I’ve rarely experienced, as I have no memory of ever detecting the dark side of the Force.”

Dea moves closer to her. Ti finds herself relaxing even more. “It may not be what you think it is, Shaak,” Dea says. “There were arts practiced in antiquity; arts used first for good and to help our people. Arts based upon our empathic resonance. Over time, one of the practitioners decided to use them for his own ends. That began an incredible period of bloodletting.”

“Sounds like something the Jedi experienced. Kenobi was convinced that this was Force-bound. He should know, having fought a dark-sider last year.” Ti reaches her own hand over and absently strokes Dea’s arm under the sleeve of the robe. “Is your resonance based on the Force?” she asks.

Dea shakes her head. “No, dear,” she says. “It’s merely a gift that allows us to reflect strong emotions. We generally don’t weaponize them, unless we absolutely have to.” She looks down at her bare toes. “Zeltrons don’t make good Jedi. Very few are selected. It requires a special amount of discipline to separate the two gifts, to get them to work together.

“Some say that there is one power on Zeltros used, that may have an aspect of the Ashla behind it,” she finishes, using the ancient term for the light side of the Force, that Ti had heard only rarely. 

“Only one person at a time has that gift, unless one starts to fade, so another can take over. It’s powerful, but only in concert with—.” She stops. 

She looks directly into Ti’s eyes. “You don’t have to let go of your student,” she says cryptically. She reaches out tentatively and touches Ti’s chest above her breasts, placing her palm flat.

“Fe Sun is here. She will always be here, in spite of the belief that she is one with the Force. She’s in your heart, if not your mind. Those are the two paramount parts of the soul—even above the body, as hard as that is to believe of us.”

Ti grins, forcing her respirations under control from the touch and those reflected back to her. As well as some that might be projected from this powerful woman. 

She feels Dea’s hand touch her right lek, then pull her head down to her chest. Ti is careful of her tall montrals, as Dea begins to stroke her head, rocking her, Ti is sure that she rocked to sleep since she was actually a youngling.

Perhaps not even as a child in the Temple. She hears Dea’s voice begin to croon a soft song in a beautiful language, one that Ti can barely understand. She feels her head grow heavy. 

Lanadea Stroyan, now known as the Chalice of Omri, bearer of immense power if her world is threatened, watches as the young woman falls asleep in her arms. She thinks of one who is missing. 

+=+=+=+=+=

Lornan Kreestate manages to climb up from where he lays in the refuse of the alley. He hears his fellow Bailiffs and Inspectors searching for him. He is half-tempted, every second to call out to them.

He curses. They cannot see him like this. For about the tenth time after he had come back to himself, he tries to remove the square box from the center of his forehead. He had followed the dry instructions that the academic had given him, removing the strap. This should’ve been all that he needed.

The box remains, as if embedded in his skin. Maybe even his skull. He grits his teeth and starts to bang the device—and his head against the ground.

He gains no release, only more of a headache. 

He slumps. He pulls a flask from his pocket and swallows the liquid down. He can feel it trickling down his insides, a centimeter at a time, burning as it goes.

Lornan wonders if the price for revenge is too high. If the price is becoming worse than what he seeks to destroy. His mind’s eye focuses on a laughing face. A face that would never laugh again. 

The laughter is replaced by the face of the academic, as he gives Lornan the means to the end. 

The end of the blight upon his world. 

Upon his soul.

He closes his eyes as he sees himself kneeling in a room, the public gathered around him, as Lanadea Stroyan looks at him sadly. The ghost-Dea places her hands on the sides of his face. Her skin is no longer warm, but burns him as her own eyes close and she unleashes the little known side of the power of the Chalice of Omri.

The power of the executioner. An arcane method, that she is the only one able to legally use.

To carry out the sentence on those who have used, or even studied these forbidden techniques. 

He feels his mind shred in his imagination. He sees the tears pouring from the Chalice’s eyes.  
For to pass this sentence in this manner would pass sentence on her as Chalice. She would never be able to wield the power of the Chalice in defense of their home.

Whether there was a chosen successor or not.

Lornan Kreestate slumps to the ground again. His silent sobs shake him as he sees this scene play out, over and over and world. 

His hunger for revenge and murder could be the death of his world, if there is no Chalice to defend her against an outside threat in an increasingly dangerous Republic. Even if he succeeds in his task and remains invisible.

Dea would have to execute Lyshaa instead, if he succeeds. 

He would be alive, if hollow.


	6. The Consolation That May Be Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Healing. The darkness rises. Lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added a couple of chapters to the count.

Obi-Wan rises from the healing center bed. Sina gives him a broad smile, dazzling in its brightness. The pain is still present, but fixed at the lower end of his pain gauge—a dull ache. 

“Scans show nothing out of the ordinary. Just a mild concussion. The analgesic that I gave you should heal any swelling, as well as help with the outer damage,” she says. “You _do_ have a hard head, Mr. Kenobi.”

“You have no idea,” he says. He closes his eyes as she touches his cheek, the warmth of her hand forcing him to concentrate his entire tiny bit of brainpower on pulling on his robe. 

“I know that this is impossible, Sir Knight, but you might want to take it easy for a few days.”

He smiles his most charming smile at her. “Not going to happen, Apprentice Faygan’ii, until we finish what we started,” he says, managing not to mangle the suffix, but still managing to add a note of pomposity to the words. He shakes his head ruefully.

His heart twists at the spike of fear flowing through her resonance. He realizes in that instant how deeply Lyshaa’s crimes had affected this world. He takes a breath, then places his own hand on her cheek. “We’ll do our best to end the fear, Sina,” he says. 

She looks at him, then smiles. “I know that you will, Master Jedi. I only hope that the cost isn’t too high to either of you.” 

Sina takes her turn to shake her head. “In the meantime, I recommend as much rest as you can get.” Her eyes grow devilish. “And actually rest, when you’re supposed to be resting,” she finishes.

He feels an eyebrow raising into his scalpline. “Whatever do you mean?” he manages.

“I mean that if I prescribe a long bath with a certain handsome Acolyte-Bailiff, that you should probably not be active enough to be splashing any water out of the tub.” Her eyes grow thoughtful. “Of course if there is room for another in there, I could monitor your health.”

Obi-Wan manages to keep his usual sputtering to a minimum. “Isn’t there some medical ethics rule against that?”

“All part of healing, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” she says. “The body is just one part of the soul, to us.” She pulls him to her in a tight hug. “It can be therapeutic, you know,” she whispers.

“What? Flirting?”

As he makes his way down the broad streets, the smile hasn’t left his face as he thinks of this bright world, full of pastels and light; of its joyous people. A joy that he hopes that he can help restore and maintain. He stops at the entrance to the peacekeeping station. He feels his mind calm even more as Jaten Gorlute walks out of the entrance. 

A girl of about twelve years old follows him out of the station, an intent expression on her face. Obi-Wan grins as he sees the burden that she carries on her shoulders. A human toddler, one hand holding onto her ride’s neck, the other twining through the older girl’s charcoal and blue waves. As they reach the bottom of the steps, the rider moves both hands over the Zeltron’s purple eyes. The affect on the serious expression on her ride’s face is instantaneous as both young women’s laughter rises. He catches a glimpse of brown eyes and thick curls flying in every possible direction on the rider. 

He draws his attention to Jaten. A tall human male, dressed in work clothes turns and shakes Jaten’s hand. Obi-Wan notices that the toddler is a smaller female copy of the man.

Jaten watches the trio leave, his eyes bearing a mixture of hope and satisfaction. He smiles as his eyes light on Obi-Wan.

“Hey,” he says. “Looks like you’re almost good as new.”

“Maybe even better,” Obi-Wan says. “Who is that?”

“Just a young woman trying to find her path. This incarnation lead all the way from Naboo and her foster family,” Jaten replies. He gazes at the retreating figures. “I told her that it’s okay to ask for help to find her path.”

“Why is she fostered so far away, with a human family?” Obi-Wan asks. 

“Her mother died last year. She was with an uncle, but he passed as well. The cousin had her own medical studies to deal with, plus being only seventeen or so. Her father has some, well, enemies of his own on his world. He decided to foster her with a trusted friend. She is just having a hard time coping with her mother’s death. For some reason, she believes that she’s not dead.”

He falls silent for a moment, his eyes thoughtful. Obi-Wan watches him as he shakes the thoughts away, turning back to him with a smile. “You’re just in time,” Jaten says, “for the time honored tradition of the cop’s lunch. At least my version of it.”

“Sounds lovely,” Obi-Wan says after a half-moment. He notices that Jaten’s eyes are locked on his, the pale gray a contrast to the crimson skin. He shakes his head. “So what does this tradition entail?”

“Well, ordinarily, it would entail copious amounts of grease and caf, eaten on the run. Since you’re new to our world, it instead will consist of the finest canned soup, lovingly prepared by an expert at insta-cooking lunches for cops.”

Obi-Wan laughs at the description. “Lead on, then.”

+=+=+=+=+=

The academic looks down at the small square, resting in its lined box. He purses his lips as his eyes track to the two other indentations in the velvet. He closes his eyes, wondering if knowledge gained of ancient, forbidden arts is worth the pain and suffering that is the result. 

He sighs and closes the box, pulling out instead a heavier, leather-bound book. He nods briefly at the opened lock, one that could only be opened by those with a different gift from the majority of his people. 

In fact, only one person at a time on the Land of Song bears even an aspect of this gift; a gift—a connection really— that doesn’t even tap its full potential in that one person.

Others possess the gift, but they generally find themselves in new lives, on a monstrous city-world, parsecs away in an ancient temple. Those that are able to control and synchronize both connection and gift. 

He puts the book aside and touches his forehead with his fingertips, then moves them beneath his nose. He stares at the dark blood staining the digits. 

The academic wipes the blood on a cloth that he pulls from his sleeve. He turns and walks up the stairs of the bunker-like construction. He manages to exit the small outbuilding that is the only visible evidence of anything below. He locks the door, allowing the lock to scan his fingerprint, then his retina. 

A few brief steps and he is opening another door. Three sleeping children, nearly identical in the dim light, rest easily in their beds. He goes to each, first his daughter, then his two sons, kissing them gently on their foreheads. He watches them, opening his resonance, searching for any of the darkness that had oozed from his subterranean lab. 

A lab adapted from a hardpoint shelter, barely a dozen years old. Built by the previous owners of the holding in the aftermath of the last incursion on this world—the Stark Hyperspace War.

He is about to pull his clothing off, to lie in the inviting embrace of his partner, lying splayed over the bed, when a gentle chime sounds. He curses as he pulls a hidden comm from his pants pocket. He looks longingly at the body of his partner—his heart-bond—before exiting to his study.

A hooded figure grows from the holocomm. 

“Ah, Doctor,” the figure says, a slight raspy, hissing cadence in the voice. “Perhaps we should discuss the latest experiment.”

The academic grits his teeth. “I told you that two Jedi could disrupt the link—especially since you insisted on being made part of the link from so far away.”

“Yes, but there was some success. I felt both Jedi weakening—especially the dead padawan’s master. I think the next test will be crucial.”

“The next test could kill all three of us—me, you, and the test subject.” He feels his lip curl. “The Projector.”

“Enough, Doctor. I’ve told you that I’ll see this through to the end. Do as I instruct, and I’ll continue to finance your research,” the figure says, more than a hint of menace in his reptilian voice.

The academic feels this windpipe tighten, for just an instant before the hologram disappears.

He slumps in his desk chair, rubbing his throat as he looks out into the starry night. He lifts his hand. A small bottle floats lazily across to his desk

+=+=+=+=+=

Jaten leads Kenobi to a nondescript house in a neighborhood filled with smaller versions of the light, airy, and open Zeltron architecture. As they walk towards the door, the sound of a particularly clamorous style of music can be heard. Jaten rolls his eyes, pushing a small button inset into the wooden frame. The music stops; Jaten opens the door. 

“Hey, Bug. You got lunch ready?” he asks as they enter into the front room. 

“I don’t know, Roach,” comes a bright voice, a bit distracted-sounding. “You bring your latest ride home?”

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows raise into his hairline as Jaten flushes a deep crimson. Neither of them say anything as they walk further into the house. His eyes fall on a young woman, an almost exact copy of Jaten, albeit a few years younger, maybe eighteen years old. She looks at him with the same steady gray eyes under the auburn hair. Obi-Wan smiles as he realizes that her eyes burn with light and joy, even more than anyone else’s he has encountered on the Land of Song. 

He walks towards her, but stops at a low growl. Obi-Wan realizes that something the size of a small pony, if a pony had six legs and a mouthful of very sharp teeth, has taken up position near her. The animal looks at him with narrowed eyes, one lip curling up. Obi-Wan notices that the guardian wears a small luminescent vest around its thick, furry middle, Aurabesh script proclaiming ‘Service Assistant’ on the sides. 

The young woman stands and places her hands on the animal’s head. Both the animal and Obi-Wan relax. 

“Hush, Tussie,” she says soothingly. Her lip quirks up on one side. “Don’t scare Jaten’s latest boyfriend. The lunk needs all the help he can get.”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth, then closes it at the twinkle in her eyes. He is distracted by a loud _meow_ coming from Tussie. His eyes widen as he realizes that the beast has grown a tiny tooka from the center of her head. He grins as he realizes that Tussie tolerates the intruder with good humor as he actually sees something reminiscent of a smile in the yellow eyes. 

The young woman walks over to him after a brief scritch of the tooka’s ears. “Demon, quit harassing Tussie,” she says. “One of these days you’ll test her good humor and she’ll make a quick meal of you.”

She extends her hand. “I’m Lyndia. The brains of the operation.” Obi-Wan realizes that he doesn’t feel the usual burbling of the resonance that he feels from every Zeltron he has met. She smiles brightly and reaches over and kisses his cheek. She steps back and Obi-Wan undergoes the usual examination of his entire person, from top to bottom.

“He might do, Roach,” she says.

“Lyndia,” Jaten says with a brief burst of annoyance. “Obi-Wan is a professional acquaintance. He’s a Jedi, not a ‘ride.”

“You don’t bring professional acquaintances home, bud,” she says. “Least not ones that look like that. That asshole Kreestate certainly doesn’t.”

Jaten reaches over and kisses his sister on her forehead. “If you can keep him entertained without turning him as red as we are, I’ll go in the kitchen and see if I can salvage our lunches from your tender mercies.” He is not quick enough to dodge the punch to his bicep.

Lyndia turns and sits on a small couch, pointing at the seat next to her.

Obi-Wan sits and smiles at her. She takes his hand in hers, rubbing the back of it. At that moment, he finally begins to sense some of the usual resonance. 

“So. Jedi,” she says. 

“Yes. Jedi,” he replies. 

“So you don’t kriff?” she asks bluntly. 

“Ah, ah,” he stammers at her directness. He takes a deep breath. “Well, I certainly don’t talk about it as much,” he manages to get out. “We just don’t form attachments,” he says, sounding lame even to his own ears.

She smiles, shaking her head. “Well, that sounds grim.”

He returns her smile, cautiously. “Not so much. I have friendships. I guess I said that we’re not allowed to form unhealthy attachments that might lead to jealousy.” He stops, feeling like he is digging a deeper hole.

“Well, you seem like a good person. Feel free to ‘attach’ the hell out of my big brother.” Her eyes flash with something other than joy. “Just don’t hurt him.” She chooses that moment to touch Tussie on her head. A low rumble emits from the ‘assistant’s jaws.

His own eyes widen. “I’ll keep your permission in mind,” he says, a hint of dryness in his voice. “Jaten does seem pretty tough, though. He dove right into fight by my side, with no fear.”

He feels just a twitch in the joy. “I know,” she says quietly. “It’s not toughness. It’s just a damned powerful sense of love and duty.” 

Obi-Wan feels something like despair from her; for just an instant. 

She looks down, then back into his eyes. “I think that you have that same sense of love and duty.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard the two conflated together like that,” he says. 

“You haven’t met many Zeltrons, have you?” she replies quickly. She grows serious, her eyes reflecting a brief bit of pain. “You’re wondering why I have a service and therapy companion?”

He says nothing, seeing her gather herself. 

“Tussie is a _lorna_ ,” Lyndia says. “She’s a native of Zeltros, a species that has served and lived in harmony with us for millenia. Like us, she has her own unique gift. She is able to absorb extreme emotions—especially overspill.”

She takes a deep breath before continuing. “Our mothers were killed in a speeder accident. I was in the speeder with them. Jaten, who has just turned fifteen, was at a boloball match with our father.” She reaches up, pulling her bangs from her forehead. Obi-Wan sees the fine network of scars on the crimson skin. “I suffered a head injury. I was nine years old.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, tightly. 

“You don’t have to—,” Obi-Wan starts.

“Please, Obi-Wan. I want to.”

He falls silent, allowing her the moment.

“The injury brought out a condition that I was apparently born with—brought it to life, so to speak. A very rare condition. It changed my life.”

“I can never go out into the world without Tussie,” she says quietly. “The injury sent my resonance into overdrive. I’ve learned to filter, but for the first few years, I nearly went insane with the amount of emotional feedback.” She brushes tears away. She looks him in the eye, suddenly calm again.

“You said you had never heard the words ‘love’ and ‘duty’ conflated together, before.

“Jaten was legally an adult on our world, even at the time of the accident. He could’ve lived his own life. Our father abandoned us; we were sent to a few foster homes here and there. I didn’t adjust well. Jaten stuck with me. Finally, he petitioned the courts to take legal custody of me. He was an adult, but the family court system wanted to make sure that he had the support he needed to raise me. To care for me. A conservator—an older adult was needed to assist. 

“One of our mothers was an Acolyte-Inspector. A co-worker, actually her boss, stepped in. We were able to buy this house from the settlement.”

“Kanyly,” Obi-Wan says. 

“No, not at first. Her heart-bond.”

“They helped me find the best care; helped Jaten make the choices for me.” She looks down. “I was a terror. So angry and lashing out. Jaten was patient and loving.”

She laughs briefly. “I spent so much time being poked and prodded that one day I decided to learn how to poke and prod others. I apprenticed to one of the mind-healers.”

“I did as much research as I could on this thing. Learned that it was so rare, that only one other case has been documented in the last fifty years or so. I apparently have something extra in my cells. Something that they call _midichlorians_ in one piece of literature I’ve found.”

Obi-Wan starts, but calms. “Is extreme sensitivity to emotions one of the symptoms?”

“One of them. In the other case, it didn’t really affect the person’s resonance that was documented. Other cases from the past took all of the emotional resonance away.”

“I can’t seem to find much on how these things affects other people on other worlds.”

_You won’t_ , he thinks. _It’s a closely guarded secret._

Jaten walks back into the room, holding a sandwich out. “We’ll have to eat on the run after all,” he says. “The Chalice wants to speak to you. When Jedi Ti wakes up from her rest.”

“Did I read correctly that Lyshaa left a journal or something that said she was trying ‘to feel something?” Obi-Wan asks as he rises. 

Jaten’s brows knit together. “Yes. I wasn’t on the original case. But, yes. I remember that.”

Lyndia rises. “The other documented case of this is sealed. But I remember it was a male.”

Obi-Wan looks at both of them. “I need some faith from you both. Would it be possible to see Lyndia’s medical files? Specifically the bloodwork?”

Jaten’s eyes flash dangerously. Lyndia stills the anger with a look. “Yes. What are you up to?”

“Just a hunch. Not something I can talk about. This is where the faith comes in. I know it’s difficult.”

Lyndia places her fingers on his lips, her thumb stroking his cheek. “Do it,” is all that she says. 

She looks at Jaten. “Remember what I told you, when you were trying to take care of me alone, brother?” She reaches over and kisses him on his cheek. “It’s okay to ask for help to find your path.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes widen at the repetition of the words that Jaten had spoken to a young girl on the steps of a peacekeeping station. Jaten pulls his sister to him tightly. “You always were smarter than me. I’m just the brawn.”

She giggles. “You remember that, bud.” She looks at Obi-Wan, then pulls him into the embrace. “I sense that this advice goes for you, as well, Obi-Wan,” she says into his ear. “For someone that you’re responsible for. Maybe a couple of someones.”

Obi-Wan digests her words, as he is conscious of the warm skin of Jaten’s cheek against his.


	7. The Cherished Memory of the Loved and Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allies? Wakings and data. The masterminds. Understandings.

Lyshaa allows the red to ease from her vision as the mysterious—not to mention highly talkative and annoying rescuer pulls her towards a hidden ship in the spaceport. As they approach the descending ramp of the small tramp freighter, she finally yanks her hand away from his.

“I’m not leaving this world, yet,” she says, each word punctuated and clear.

The figure turns, then crosses his muscular arms across his chest. The dark eyes crinkle with what she suspects is his version of a charming, devil-may-care grin. “Thought you wanted to see the galaxy at Black Sun’s expense,” he says in a deep, but lazy voice.

Her eyes narrow. “On my terms, thug,” she says, her voice dripping with menace. “I don’t care if you work for Xizor. I still have things to do to prove myself.” She allows a dark smile of her own to flow over her features. “Besides. I owe that Jedi a bit of pain. Maybe even a bit of allowing her to watch her guts spill on the ground, as I remind her of how her whelp cried out for her Master when I slaughtered her.”

She watches as his eyes lose the crinkle at the edges, as the dark beads grow blank. “You still need a place to hole up, dear,” he says, his teeth clinching. “You look like poodoo that’s been stepped in.”

Lyshaa lifts her hand and runs it through her purple-red hair. A tiny bit of a quirk lifts her lip. She reaches down and runs her hand over his groin. “You certainly know how to say the most romantic things to a girl, charmer,” she says.

As she has for the last twenty years, she opens herself to possibilities, using the gift that her people are born with.

She looks down, as the result is the same.

Lyshaa feels nothing.

No lust. No joy from anyone else.

The gift of her people, the extreme sensitivity to emotion, is closed off to her. She feels her anger—the anger that had grown to replace the despair of her youth—move in at the edges of her consciousness. She quickly suppresses it, knowing that this unknown thug might be a ticket to being able to express the only emotion that she is even able to feel in herself.

Unbridled hatred and rage.

Lyshaa calms her breathing, allows a winsome smile—or at least what she hopes is one to play over her face. She curses in her mind her inability to even feel anything during the act that her people are most known for—one that only her imagination allows her to depict engaging in with this human.

She uses that imagination to tap into the one aspect of her people’s gift that she can even begin to use. The ability to reflect the strong emotions; even if they aren’t her own and she can’t discern between them. As she concentrates on the vision in her mind, she feels a reaction from the male under her fingers.

She gasps as her world sways. She falls to her knees. After a moment, the thug places his hands under her elbows, lifting her up with a surprising gentleness. She tries to shake him off, but he steadies her.

The dark eyes over the mask are filled with something other than lust. She shoves him away, managing to remain on her feet. “I don’t want your pity. I don’t even need that brain between your legs. I need you to introduce me to your boss. To vouch for me, after I slaughter those two Jedi and a few others.”

She sees one of the thick eyebrows lift. “Well, you might want to be nice to me, darlin’,” he says. “Falleen aren’t known for their love of your people. I think the phrase I seem to hear the most translates roughly as _‘I would rather eat your heart fresh from my roasting pit than stand next to you on a street’,_ ” he recites. “This from a species who rivals yours for certain appetites of the flesh.”

She laughs. “They just hate us because we’re immune to their primitive chemical pheromones. Tell me, bounty hunter. Did you succumb to the Prince’s appetites?”

“Well, let’s just say that the Prince and I will always have Ord Mantell.”

Lyshaa manages to catch herself before she snorts. “So what is your part in this, thug?” she asks.

“Well, I’m your chaperone. I may be your partner if Prince Xizor decides to make use of you and not turn your innards into a nourishing meal,” he replies matter-of-factly.

“I work alone—,” she starts. She closes her mouth. “You might not be able to handle me, thug,” she finishes.

She sees his eyes crinkle again. “You’d be surprised what I can handle, darlin’,” he says. She rolls her eyes as the thick eyebrows waggle.

“Apparently you couldn’t handle a Falleen’s chemlust,” she rejoinders.

“Who said I wanted to?”comes the immediate reply. “My charm might be the only thing that keeps him from killing you.”

Lyshaa feels herself sway again. This time, she allows him to pull her to him.

“I just need to eat. Hope you’ve got a full pantry. Zeltrons have high metabolisms, thug.”

“Could you stop calling me that? My dear old mother never wanted me to be in the occupation life has forced me into,” he says, with almost a wistful air.

“So what the hell do I call you, then?”

He holds his hand out. “Tas Galatin. His mother’s pride and joy, even if he didn’t become a galaxy-famous valachordist.”

Lyshaa feels herself giggle slightly, just before falling as if into a deep chasm. She is barely conscious as he lies her on the bed.

She doesn’t see him take up the small stone that rests between her breasts on a chain. He closes both hands on it, then closes his eyes.

After several moments, he looks down at her, his eyes sad.

In her mind, she hears children chanting at her. _Gean-gere_ reverberates over and over in her mind.

Throughout her sleep.

_Heart-monster_

+=+=+=+=+=

Obi-Wan enters the small building. A teenaged boy, dressed in a light robe greets him with a bow. He follows the Acolyte-Herald through an audience chamber, then into a smaller, more intimate chamber. His eyes widen as they fall on the two figures on the bed.

He bows, eschewing the movement with his hands that Jaten gives beside him. The Chalice of Omri nods, but continues to wipe Shaak Ti’s forehead with a damp cloth as her head rests in the Chalice’s lap. Obi-Wan focuses his attention on his fellow Jedi. Ti’s chest rises and falls in rhythm.

In spite of the pain of his thoughts, of what he might have to do, Obi-Wan smiles at the gentleness of the scene.

The Chalice puts the cloth down. She gently lifts Ti’s head from her lap, placing it on the pillow, rising as she does.

She walks over to the pair and places her hands on each man’s cheek. She gently nudges them to the audience chamber.

“She is resting,” she says as she closes the door. She looks at Obi-Wan, her obsidian eyes boring into his blue. “She is troubled by what happened. I don’t sense any anger in her, but I do feel a tiny bit of _concern.”_

The Chalice shares a bit of a smirk with Obi-Wan at the emphasis on the word. She turns her attention to Jaten. “Hello, lad,” she says. “How’s that sister of yours?”

Obi-Wan marvels at the closeness of this world; of its people. He watches Jaten look away, then back at the older woman.

“She’s as stubborn as ever, my Lady,” he replies.

The Chalice smiles. “Still waters,” she says simply. “The offer is still open, Jaten. For her to come to me. I think the knowledge she has gained as a healer and her own study would be immensely important and add a great deal to our research into the mysteries of the resonance.”

“All due respect, my Lady, she wants to remain at home,” Jaten says, his gray eyes resolute.

After a moment, the Chalice nods. “Very well. But don’t think I don’t know why she refuses. This isn’t charity. This will be hard work.”

Jaten nods. Obi-Wan takes this moment to speak. “My Lady, it has come to my attention that Lyndia’s—,” he stops for a moment, “— _gift_ may be connected to what we experienced with Lyshaa.”

The Chalice raises a sculpted eyebrow. She nods at Obi-Wan to continue.

“Lyndia has given me permission to access her medical records—specifically her bloodwork. If I could access the Holonet, I might be able to retrieve them.”

She guides him over to a console. Within moments, and using her account, he is in the system. He searches for a certain number. It only takes a moment.

His eyes widen at the result. He shakes his head, then closes his eyes, opening them again.

The result is the same. The midichlorian count, the earliest indicator of a Force adept is high, but still well below the threshold that the Order would consider Force-sensitive.

His shoulders slump. The brief glimmer of hope that a local Force-user, albeit untrained and unable to control their powers, much like the midichlorians might be affecting Lyndia and her resonance, is dashed.

 _It was a stretch, anyway_ , he thinks.

He notices that the Chalice is watching him. She turns to Jaten. “Jaten, dear, could you go check in with Kanyly? I’d like to know the status of the search for Inspector Kreestate.”

Jaten opens his mouth, as if to protest, then closes it. He makes his obeisance, then glances at Obi-Wan. He winks, then locks gazes with him for a moment. He turns away, a slight smile on his face.

Obi-Wan watches him leave. He turns to see the priestess, or whatever she is, grinning at him.

“I’m assuming you wanted to speak to me alone,” he says, hastily changing the subject.

She allows him to. “Yes. I saw what figure you were looking at. You have a hunch? Or better yet, a theory?”

He takes a deep breath. “I did. But I think it’s shot to hell.”

“Explain.”

“I can’t, too deeply, my Lady,” he says. “I’m bound by a certain level of secrecy.”

She nods. “Tell me what you can.”

“I know that Zeltros is one of the worlds in the Republic that automatically tests for Jedi,” he says.

Her eyes don’t flicker. “Yes?” she says evenly, as if asking him to confirm what he had just said about the weather.

Obi-Wan nods, trying to read her expression. “There aren’t many Zeltron Jedi. Of those that do test, many don’t succeed. It’s hard to reconcile the powers.”

The Chalice smiles mysteriously.

“Yes, Obi-Wan. She just spent time telling me the same thing,” says a fresh voice.

Both turn to the bedroom door. Shaak Ti stands framed in the door. She holds onto the wall with one hand. She is clad in a partially open, light robe—similar to the one that the Chalice wears. She smiles at the Chalice. “I borrowed one of yours, Dea. I know what affect my body has on Knight Kenobi, from when he came to retrieve me from the Hunt on my world.”

Obi-Wan grins at the memory of his blushing. He nods. “It’s good to see you up and about, my friend,” he says.

“It’s good to be up. Please continue with your theory,” she says, walking over to them. She holds out her hands to the Chalice—Dea. Obi-Wan’s eyebrows rise to his scalp as they kiss.

He looks down, then at them directly. All three sit on the small couch. “Some of those that are rejected, leave the Order. The attempts to try to balance the two powers can have a serious impact on their mental and emotional health.”

“Lyshaa can’t be one of them. You think she might be a wild Force-user?” Ti asks.

“No. Maybe. I don’t think that whatever it was came from her.”

Ti’s eyes are thoughtful, as are Dea’s. “There’s someone else out there?”

He nods. “I think Lyshaa was affected by it as well. I don’t think the bridge collapse was affecting her like that.

“But my theory is shot, since Lyndia’s midichlorian count was just below the threshold.”

“What made you connect this, Obi-Wan?” Dea asks.

“She mentioned the midichlorians in connection with her hypersensitivity. She said it affected others in different ways. Thought there might be a nexus with Force-sensitivity.”

“You may be onto something, young Kenobi,” Dea says.

“What?”

She sits as if gathering herself. “It’s time for me to keep secrets. Secrets that could bring my world down if known to outsiders.”

Obi-Wan starts to rise. Ti places her hand on his arm. She shakes her head.

Dea takes a deep breath. “Let’s just say that this particular range of midichlorian counts is very rare. Like only two per generation. In fact there has been only four in the last century. That we know of.”

“One of them sits next to you.”

All of them fall silent.

“Who are the other three?”

“One is a young woman who will replace me as Chalice, shortly.” Her eyes tell them that she will reveal nothing further.

“The other is a schoolmate of mine. As you can tell, he was not chosen as Chalice. Nothing manifested in him. He seems to be very normal.”

“Who is he?”

She shakes her head emphatically. “That is a closely guarded secret. One that I will not divulge. One that would cause me to tell our _Zoetarch_ to withdraw our Senator and expel all Jedi if you try to force me. Those who aren’t chosen deserve their peace and privacy.”

Ti and Obi-Wan look at one another, as if in agreement, for now. “Very well, my Lady,” Ti says formally.

“Lyndia says this affliction affects others in other ways?” Obi-Wan asks quietly.

“Yes, dear,” Dea replies. “Lyndia’s example is but one. Some it affects by ripping their resonance away in full. Others, it doesn’t affect. Those are the ones that are documented in our archives.

“Some it manifests itself through trauma; others—the ones that are chosen to replace a Chalice, it comes on gradually, with various indicators.”

She gets up. “I cannot tell you the name. But I’m sure that the Jedi could find out very easily.” Again, she touches both of their cheeks. “I think that both of you have something to say to each other.” She reaches down, then kisses Ti, then moves her lips to Obi-Wan’s. They linger for a moment. “I’m no Jedi, but I know the soul. Unburden yours to each other.”

She turns just before she exits the room. “I think that you might also look at Lyshaa’s count, as well. If there are actually three Potentials in one sept, then this could have consequences for my world.”

Ti and Obi-Wan stare at one another. Ti gets up. “I’ll contact Master Nu to get the testing records unsealed. Luminara can help research for this range. She’s done some studies on the finding of Jedi.”

Obi-Wan stands and steps in her path.

“No.”

+=+=+=+=+=

The small figure watches as Xizor’s new minion fades in over the holocomm. Tas Gallatin bows, but with a cheeky grin.

“Well, Galatin,” Xizor intones in a bored voice. “I’ve had a trying day. Tell me something that might be thought of as a success.”

“Well, my Prince, I didn’t catch a social disease.”

Xizor’s uncle stifles the smirk starting to flow over his reptilian, but with a hint of human features. He sighs as Xizor stares at the minion.

He speaks up, “Perhaps, my lord, I can deal with this—,” he starts.

Xizor shakes his head. “No, my uncle. I can tolerate a bit of nonsense, if the creature purveying it gets results.”

Both turn and stare at the thug. To his credit, Gallatin doesn’t tremble with fear, as most would. “I have the Zeltron woman, your Worship,” he says. “She’s recovering, but should be ready for any tests that you might have.”

“Is she ready to come to our rendezvous?” the uncle asks.

Galatin shakes his head. “No, Mr. Thittan. She says she has something to finish on Zeltros.” His eyes narrow over the mask. “You didn’t tell me there were Jedi involved.”

“We expect our fighters to be able to adapt,” Thittan says.

“Does her unfinished business include these Jedi?” Xizor asks.

Gallatin says nothing.

“Then let her finish this. This could be a better test than anything you could devise, Gallatin,” the Vigo says.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Could bring a lot of unwanted attention from the Jedi,” Gallatin replies.

“You let me worry about that, gunsel,” Xizor says. “My sense is that the Jedi are going to be overwhelmed a bit in the next few years.” He lifts his lip in a sneer. “I thought you Mandos were tough.”

Thittan breaks in as he sees his nephew—his lord—growing bored. “I’ll comm you with details for the rendezvous.” He clicks off the comm before Gallatin can reply.

“I don’t trust him,” Xizor says.

“My lord,” Thittan says, “I say we let him do what we paid him for. Let him assess Lyshaa; if we can use her and he can control her, we should.”

Xizor shakes his head. “I don’t trust him,” he repeats. He turns to four armored figures watching, their helmeted faces revealing nothing. “Go to Zeltros. Watch them. Kill anyone you need to, Clan Elder,” he says. He holds his hand up. “No. Bring the Zeltron to me alive. I will deal with her, if needed. Consider this your test for a full contract.”

They turn and leave. “I don’t think that is a good idea, my Prince.”

“Maybe not, Uncle Malaky. But remember that you suggested Gallatin to me. I don’t forget, family or not. Even one as valuable to me as you.” Thittan bows and follows to another door.

Thittan glances at the mirror, at the hint of his father, a human slave, staring back at him in the piercing blue-gray eyes and softer features. He sighs and runs his fingers though the graying brown hair.

He pulls his comm out, activating the menu. He scrolls through many contacts, until he comes to one particular icon.

A four-pointed star, with another in the center. The outline of a mythical reptile surrounding the star.

Malaky Thittan smiles as he selects the icon.

+=+=+=+=+=

Ti’s eyes flash at Kenobi’s quiet response. “What the hell do you mean, _no_?” she says, her voice as sharp as the hunting knife that is usually strapped to her thigh.

“We need to talk, Shaak,” he replies, his voice as soft and even as her is hard and sharp.

She looks away. “There’s nothing to talk about, Obi-Wan. We have a job to do. We have to find Lyshaa and get her some help.”

His eyes narrow. “Are you sure? You looked like you were ready to kill her. Without qualm, when she was helpless.”

“I didn’t.”

“Shaak, I felt it too. It was the dark side; I’m sure of it.”

“Well, maybe it was. But that was not what was affecting me. There are no known instances of someone using the dark side who could influence someone to turn dark themselves—with a mere suggestion.”

He looks away, his face crumpling in pain. “No. That’s what I am afraid of. Your anger, your fear, your desire for vengeance will send you over the precipice.”

“Obi-Wan. Sith Lords seem to be your dedicated expertise, at least in the eyes of the Council. Have I given you any indicator that I am angry?”

“No, but—,” he says. He closes his mouth. “Your fear. Your grief can lead to the dark side.”

He falls silent, watches her. She smiles serenely, as she always does. She knows that the passion can be seen in her eyes, as well, beneath the calm. Not anger. Not grief.

Passion for the light.

At least that’s what she tells herself. What she has to tell herself, rather than feel it, some days.

“Shaak, I felt it. When Qui-Gon died on Naboo. I felt nothing but rage. A desire for vengeance. I managed to kill Maul—that’s what we learned he called himself, from the Nemoidians that we captured. That’s about the only thing we learned about the Sith.” He looks down, taking several deep breaths. “I sliced him in half. I don’t know if there could’ve been another way. I don’t know if I can celebrate his death.”

Ti feels her heart constrict for the raw pain. “That’s what separates you from the dark side, Obi-Wan,” she says in a low voice. She looks him directly in his blue eyes. “It’s what I’m counting on, if I do fall. That compassion. That you’ll use that compassion to end the threat.”

She doesn’t say which threat.

“I don’t want to do what the hardliners on the Council say I must do, Shaak. I don’t think that I can do this.”

She grins briefly. “Well, at this particular moment, I’d rather that you not. But you are a Jedi. A good one. You’ll do what must be done. I only hope that I can come back from whatever is affecting me this time.” She looks at him. “If I don’t, put your blade in my heart. If you can, don’t let me know.” She looks at him. “You know you must.

“Sithkiller.”

His eyes flash with anger. “Don’t ever call me that.”

He whirls and is gone.

She slumps again. She twists her knuckles in her eyes, willing no tears to come.

Her comm beeps from the pocket of the borrowed robe

After a moment of insistent chiming, she pulls it out. She runs her hands over her face, then activates it.

Luminara Unduli’s flashes into existence. Shaak tries to ignore the compassion in the warm blue eyes.

“Shaak, you look like poodoo,” she says.

“Thanks,” Ti says dryly.

“Are you alright?” Luminara asks.

“I am.”

Luminara says nothing, but her features give Ti all she needs to know about her relative disbelief. She shakes her head, then grins. “You found any diversion on Zeltros?”

“No. Obi-Wan might have, though. A very handsome peacekeeper.”

Luminara’s eyebrows rise to her headcovering. “That boy,” is all that she says, as she shakes her head.

“You know, there’s always the healer’s recommended dose of Quin Vos when you get back,” Luminara says.

“Well, I don’t know. Feel free to take your own dose, if you need to,” Ti says. She starts to sigh impatiently when she sees Luminara look down.

When she looks up, Shaak is struck by the almost shy look on the Mirialan’s features.

“There are others that could be prescribed as well,” she says. “That are willing to be prescribed.”

The shy look is punctuated by a deep flush, visible even in the monochrome holo.

She feels her own lekku stripes flush. She makes herself raise her hand. Luminara’s face grows calm.

“I got your text. I looked through the database for Zeltros for the range specified on the count. There have been only four in the last hundred years or so. Three that have been sealed, except for the scores. Lyndia Gorlute is there.”

“What about the scores of those sealed?” Ti asks.

“One is the lowest. The other two are in between them. Identical. One from about eight decades ago, the other from maybe two.”

“Did you find Lyshaa’s records?”

Luminara takes a deep breath. “That’s just it, Shaak,” she says.

“There’s no record of her being tested.”


	8. So Costly a Sacrifice Upon the Altar of Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A call from home. A moment, interrupted by another call. The sides gather, and strike. Tussie’s warning.

Obi-Wan takes a sip of his caf as he watches Zel rise higher in the sky, allowing the warm air to play over his face. He reaches up and touches his cheek. The three day growth of beard is evident against the skin of his fingers. He glances at his face in the reflection of the pitcher of water on the table. His eyes narrow at the effect of the slight amount of hair on his face. He realizes that his face, even with the sparse growth, has lost some of the boyishness, still very evident even at age twenty-six. 

He shakes his head, his mind flowing away from thoughts of his own maturity. In rapid succession, his thoughts move to Anakin and then to Ti. He closes his eyes as he thinks of his anger at the common nickname that he had been awarded since Naboo.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t linger on his dark thoughts, but on a certain Zeltron peacekeeper’s even features. He allows himself a bit more time to think about Jaten Gorlute.

As they have for the last day since he had last seen Ti, Jaten, and Lyndia, since he had been left to his own, his thoughts move from Jaten’s grin to his sister’s words. 

_It’s alright to ask for help to find your path._

He sighs and picks up the datapad, preparing for more hours and hours of searching among thousands upon thousands of individual records, looking for any inkling of Lyshaa’s missing or non-existent midichlorian test. 

Zeltros has always worked with the Jedi in universal testing; hoping that if someone was identified as a Force-sensitive, the Jedi could help them balance the divergent powers of the empathic resonance and the Force. Something that could ultimately harm the bearer, if not addressed with only a tiny bit of focus-training. _If it worked_.

His comm beeps. He immediately touches the button, hoping for news from other fronts, or, more likely, just hoping for a respite from the data-crunching.

Anakin’s neutral face appears over the pickup. He bows. “Hello, my master,” he says. 

In spite of himself, Obi-Wan feels the smile grow over his face. “Hello, Anakin. How goes it?”

Anakin smiles carefully. “I’m fine, Master Obi-Wan. I’m learning a lot from Master Yoda.”

“Really? I thought Knight Fisto was overseeing your group training,” Obi-Wan says.

“He was. He’s funny,” Anakin adds. 

Obi-Wan doesn’t allow the immature stab of jealousy to linger. 

Anakin shakes his head. “No, Master. It’s a different type of funny than you.”

Obi-Wan is unsure of how to take that. “So how did you wind up with Master Yoda?”

Anakin’s face grows pensive. “It was weird. He came in and said that he wanted to show me some things. The next thing I know, I’m watching him fight ten training remotes at once.” His eyes widen. “I thought he couldn’t move very well, what with his cane and all.”

Obi-Wan’s smile grows into laughter. “Never be surprised by Master Yoda,” he says.

The doorchime sounds. “Anakin, I have to go. I’ll call you later, if you’d like.” He searches for words as he sees Anakin’s face fall. “I’ll tell you a little bit about what I’m doing on the mission.”

His heart sinks at the expression of excitement on the boy’s face.

He turns around. Jaten Gorlute watches as Anakin’s holo fades away. 

“Good morning,” Jaten says. He comes over and sits next to Obi-Wan. He brushes his fingers against Obi-Wan’s hand. “Was that your apprentice?” he asks.

Obi-Wan can only nod, trying to concentrate on something other than the warm skin on his. _Come on, Kenobi. It’s not like you’re going to leave the Order or anything_. Idly, his mind wanders to that sojourn in the Mandalore sector, to the sensations of pale skin and a soft, sometimes mocking voice. He shakes his head, remembering the pain, as well as the sympathetic looks that Qui-Gon had given him afterwards. 

He shakes the thoughts away as Jaten speaks. “He looks like a handful. A hard charger.”

“You have no idea,” Obi-Wan manages to say. The words come harder as Jaten takes his hand fully in his own. 

“He also thinks the sun shines out of your ass,” Jaten adds.

Obi-Wan feels the incredulous look on his own face, probably replacing the awkward smile on his face at the contact. “What?”

Jaten laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “In the short amount of time that I’ve known you, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’ve shown that you can be incredibly dense and clueless. That boy hangs on your every word.”

Obi-Wan is quiet. He sees something in Jaten’s gray eyes.

Just before they turn sable.

Jaten lifts his hand and brings the knuckles to his lips, kissing each one.

Obi-Wan feels his breathing increase, as his leggings become incredibly small. “You’re using your hoodoo on me.”

Jaten smiles against his knuckles. He drops the hand, then stands. He leans over. “Nope. You’re getting only a little bit of my emotions. The rest are yours,” he says. 

Obi-Wan closes his eyes as their lips touch. He takes the initiative, bring his tongue into Jaten’s mouth. He loses all sense of time, as Jaten’s hands move quickly to his groin. He moves his mouth to Jaten’s throat; his teeth playing along the skin above the uniform tunic. 

Jaten pushes back, his lips moving downward to the open undertunic. The officer drops to his knees, his hands moving to Obi-Wan’s. 

Obi-Wan starts to open them wider, hearing the slight vocalizations from Jaten. 

Vocalizations suddenly marked by a chiming sound. Then by a two-part harmony of groans from both.

Jaten moves back, taking a moment to straighten Obi-Wan’s tunic. He moves out of view. 

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, then answers the comm. His eyes narrow at the caller. “Your timing could be better, Luminara,” he says in a dust-like voice.

“There’s no time, Obi-Wan. Corellian Security has received credible information on Lyshaa’s location, from an inside source.”

Obi-Wan remains calm. “How credible?”

Unduli gives a huff of impatience. “Very. What’s more, Black Sun elements may be already on their way or there. At least four Mandos, each with a cadre of eight or so other thugs.”

He stands up, locking gazes with Jaten. “Alright. Send the coordinates.”

“Done,” Luminara says. She looks at someone off-pickup, then nods. “The Procurator-Fiscal and External says that a unit of their Rangers in en route, but will not assist unless there is a direct mutual-aid request from the government of Zeltros.”

Jaten turns and pulls his own comlink.

“It may be coming, Nara. We’re on our way. I’ll contact Ti.”

“Be careful Obi-Wan. We don’t know what’s brewing. May the Force be with you.”

Obi-Wan begins to run out of his lodgings, on the heels of Jaten Gorlute.

+=+=+=+=+=

Lyshaa lies prone on the roof of a building overlooking the landing field, a small pair of electrobinoculars resting on the back of her left wrist. She had slept for the better part of a day, then gotten up when Tas had been out and raided his pantry. The raid had been a tremendous success, as she had left the small compartment bare of any instant rations. For a moment, she moves her thoughts of what she would soon be doing, to marvel at the ability of her species to demolish a meal to satisfy their high metabolism; possibly a by-product of the power of the resonance. 

She shakes her head at the idle thoughts, returning her mind to her not-companion. She had slept, one part of her brain listening for the slights sounds he made to diminish into a much-louder raucous snoring. As soon as she had heard the cacophony, she had managed to sneak out, scavenging several items, as well as the remainder of the food packets.

The slight amount of sleeping drops in the water bottle had finally been enough to knock the Mando out. She had debated whether to make it a larger dose, one that he would never wake up from.

She still might put him into an eternal sleep with one of the other items that she had purloined, a light, but powerful blaster carbine that rests in front of her. Something she had learned to use well in her brief service of the Pykes. 

Lyshaa gives an uncharacteristic grin. _No. He might still be useful. For something_. She was gratified that she had been asleep; as he had kept up a running commentary from the time of their escape on the speederbike. 

Her hearing detects the banging of running footsteps down the ramp. Galatin holds one of his other blasters; had managed to pull the cowl over his face and a pair of trousers on, but little else. Some small remnant of her people’s appreciation of beauty causes her to pull the binocs up and focus on him; over the broad shoulders and the dark skin of his chest. Lyshaa grits her teeth. _You didn’t come up to this roof to admire a broad set of shoulders. You came up here to see how he would react—whether you might be able to use him._

The pain lances into her brain again. The flashing holoshow that accompanies her any thought of having to kill anyone. Ever since that night. The night of the killing madness. The night of trying to feel anything in the void of her emotions. 

The night of blood and screams—some of them her own. 

She had watched from afar, much as she does now as the cops had tried to figure out why any Zeltron would do the things she had seen. Her lip curls as she sees her grandfather—the one who had abandoned her family, standing among them, his cold blue eyes touched by the usual nothingness. 

A slight roaring noise comes into her senses, growing louder. Her eyes widen as she sees Galatin flip backwards several time as blasterfire lands where he had been standing. Lyshaa looks up, seeing an armor clad figure lighting down, the jetpack on their back producing only a slight bit of flame. 

The unknown Mando—for the armor has the same look and style of several of the Pyke mercenaries that she had known, starts to move to the entryport of the ship. Lyshaa makes a quick decision. 

_I’ll be the only one to kill him, if he needs killing_ , flashes unbidden into her mind. She lifts the blaster’s scope to her eye, then fires rapidly. She sees her multiple shots strike the armor, forcing the Mando to their knees, at least. She continues to pour energy into the Mando, until they are unmoving on the ground. 

Galatin runs out, his eyes seemingly locking with hers, even over the distance. Her eyes widen as she feels something tickling at her mind. Something similar to what had nearly incapacitated her during the mayhem at the lover’s square.

_Something_.

She snatches up her weapons and other items. She turns and runs, clearing a leap over an alley to the next building with ease. 

+=+=+=+=+=

_The master watches as the pupil concentrates, opening her young mind to reach out to the beast. The padawan extends her hand out to the young male, turning her hand, palm up, in an almost beseeching manner. The_ akul _paws at the ground, his claws extending, then retracting in a moment of indecision, as if trying to decide whether to reach out and end his fellow young one with one powerful swipe over her lightly furred skin. The padawan smiles slightly in her concentration, a smile that is not too dissimilar to her antagonist in the hunt; as they are not too far in evolutionary separation._

_The master releases her indrawn breath as the young beast bows its head and allows her padawan to stroke his head. As the predator bounds away to his clan leaders, the padawan opens her eyes, smiling at her master._

_The master returns the grin with one of her own, both with sharp incisors, the padawan’s golden eyes meeting the pride-filled violet of her master._

_The master glances at the young predator, who sits nearby, watching both of them. His gold-flecked green eyes blinking once, then twice, before bounding away._

_The master narrows her eyes, as she realizes something is amiss in this scene. She feels her padawan pull into her arms in a warm embrace._

_“Well done, my padawan,” she says, her voice filled with warmth._

_“Thank you, Master Ti,” Fe Sun replies._

Ti’s eyes snap open at the memory. Strangely, for the first time since Fe Sun’s death, she is calm in her meditation. She smiles softly at the recollection of the accomplishment of Fe Sun, of skill demonstrated in both the ways of the Jedi, and the ways of her master’s people.

The smile freezes for a moment as she thinks of something out of place. Her mind flies immediately to the young _Akul’s_ eyes. Eyes that were marked with gold flecks in a background of an almost warm sea-green.

An eye color that is rare or non-existent in this particular species. Eyes surrounded by iron-gray fur, with a touch of a brindle color—a dark and gold mixture around the jaws.

Ti shakes her head as she tries to remember where she has seen those colors before. Her eyes widen as the gray and green flash to her memory in the face of a much smaller version of the young male. A cub, standing next to her mind-companion, the Mother.

She comes back to the present as she sees that she is not alone. One of the young Acolyte-Heralds stands in front of her, her pure white gown flowing in the breeze over her bare feet. The girl, about fourteen, stands with her head bowed, a bundle of cloth held outstretched in her hands. 

“Your pardon, mistress. My lady Chalice bids me to give you these. Your own clothes are being mended and cleaned.” 

Ti almost laughs as she sees the girl’s nose wrinkle at the mention of her worn and battle-torn robes, singlet, and skirt. She instead bows gravely and accepts the bundle. She drops one eye in a wink to the Herald, who giggles and turns away.

Ti opens the bundle and smiles. A pair of leggings and an undertunic are revealed, one in dark blue, the top in white. Her heart flips as she realizes that the sleeves have been removed and sewn, giving her arms free movement. 

She looks in the mirror at the result. Her own weapons belt and boots; her headdress in place; she is ready. 

As she comes out on the street, she nods at the passerby who smile at her. She returns the appraising look of several who are bold enough to engage her eyes, laughing at those whose eyes give her a welcoming flash; a promise if she is receptive. She continues down the street. 

For one moment, she stops and breathes in the spicy warmth of the air. For the first time in months, she is calm, her thoughts of her losses, but only the fond thoughts of Atti and Fe Sun. She wonders if the Chalice and her world have manipulated her and her emotions. 

_No. I have just found people who are willing to help me find my path_. Her mind sees Kenobi’s anger when she uses his nickname. Her eyes fall for a moment, but rise again, as she thinks of the previously unknown depths of the young Jedi—demonstrated especially since he had come to her world to find her and bring her back to the Temple at the behest of others who shared his concern. 

She closes her eyes with a broader grin as she thinks of his fumbling and stuttering responses to the not-so-subtle advances of the young peacekeeper. _It’s alright, Kenobi my lad, if you find some relief in a pair of gray eyes and wiry muscles_ , Ti thinks. She shakes her head, concentrating on the joy—not on the information that Luminara had passed on to her. 

The fact that Lyshaa had never been tested for midichlorians.

Her own mind tracks to the comforts of the Chalice, as she had helped her heal. There had been hints of more, but Dea had merely held her, crooning to her, and caressing her face. Her body had responded to the resonance, but mainly by falling into a dreamless sleep, if only for a bit.

At least that’s what she tells herself, ruefully.

The warmth in her thoughts and her emotions suddenly escapes her. Her Force sense stabs her at the base of her skull, where the center lek joins, with an urgent projection of almost electrical sensation.

The taste of ashes dries her mouth; the same taste from the earlier battle—although only a slight taste. 

The ashes are forgotten as she turns a corner. She stops at the sight of several Nikto, all with angry expressions (is there any other for a Nikto?) and all armed to the teeth. A Mandalorian, in full armor floats above with a jetpack. 

The Mando points at her and makes a slashing motion across her throat. 

Ti’s lightsaber flies to her hand as a she eschews her usual serene expression for battle. A predator’s grin creases her features, as she deflects a blaster shot into the firing thug’s closest companion.

A second bolt flies into the backpack of the hovering Mandalorian. The crash of _beskar’gam  
_ smacking into the ground is punctuated by more blaster shots as the seven remaining Nikto swarm her. 

+=+=+=+=+=

Lornan Kreestate, Acolyte Senior Inspector in the service of the Chalice of Omri, downs another shot of the powerful Torlos. He looks in the mirror above the bar, careful not to let his hood drop to far away from his forehead. He catches the glimpse of the fresh scratches where he has tried to pry the ancient box from its embed in his his skin. He is not sure, but he fears that the box has actually embedded through the skull into his brain itself.

The pain centers him. He recalls watching his son and his family laughing. Watching from a distance, as he had managed to shove them away further away from him, just as his emotional capacity shoved itself further and further away from himself. Just as his heartbonds’ love for him vanished in a cloud of despair. A cloud of despair that he himself had formed.

He remembers the last time that he had spied on them. The glimpse of the outlier, not engaging in any of the rest of the family’s joyous activities. Watching. Calculating. A dark expression on her face. 

One similar to his, as he lost his emotional grip. He closes his eyes, as he does feel the pain of regret. As he remembers what his inaction—no, his insensitivity had cost him.

He motions to the barkeep for another bottle of the liquor of his homeworld. The barkeep turns and ignores him. Kreestate starts to rise, but sits, slumping in the bar. Nearly two days of sitting at this bar in his waking hours—meaning most of the hours—had probably earned the cut-off.

He starts as the earpiece in his ear chimes with a particular sound. He touches a red button on his wrist comm and tunes into the restricted frequency.

“—-all special purpose units in the district should move to the staging area near the public landing field. Credible intelligence says that Lyshaa was spotted near there, and may have been contacted. Make sure each unit has an Acolyte-Adept to try and fight off whatever the broadcast was. One of the Jedi and Bailiff Gorlute is on their way. Someone needs to go to the Chalice’s main sacristy and secure the other Jedi, who is recovering there.”

Kreestate’s anger rises—the only emotion he seems to be able to feel these days, as he shuts off Kanylynaan na’Torstan’ii’s voice off.

After a moment, he picks up another comm. His gives the barkeep a look that causes him to move away from his end of the bar.

The calm face of the Academic looks back at him from the discreet screen. “What?”

“I need you to give me the link, one more time,” he says. 

“You know what I said, projector,” he says. “No more, until I can tune both boxes.”

“How about I let all of those buddies of yours at the University know what the esteemed Dr. Laken has been doing with his spare time.”

The academic smiles. “They already pretty much think I’m insane. Try again.”

“Well, then I wonder what you would look like with Dea Stroyan’s beautiful hands on the sides of your face, just before she rips your mind for trafficking in the forbidden knowledge of the _Bah-lan’ki?”_

“I guess the same as yours would when her successor would, seeing how she loses the power after executing someone.” Laken shakes his head. “This is getting us nowhere. Let me make a call.” He rings off.

Kreestate stands and without a word, he walks out the door. He does begin to feel the preliminary indicators of a projection—a projection not of emotions, but of an arcane power from the wider universe.

He stops as he debates which way to turn.

He smiles, turning away from the public landing field and its legions of peacekeepers forming. 

He begins to walk towards a small building. A small building that ordinarily houses a former schoolmate of his.

One that now holds a particularly vulnerable practitioner of that binding energy field.

+=+=+=+=+=

Ti uncharacteristically laughs as she splits a slugthrower in half with her blade, before slicing the other hand that holds a large vibroblade moving towards her right lekku. 

_What the hell is wrong with you?_ she thinks. “Concentrate, huntress,” she says quietly. 

She manages to take a brief look around the alley way. Four of the Nikto lie in various stages of grievous bodily injury, either from her blade or their own blaster bolts deflected by said blade.

The Mando in charge has not moved since she had landed on the hard permacrete, her leg at an awkward angle.

Ti closes her eyes for a brief second, centering herself, slowing her respirations. Her eyes snap open as her opponents take the closed eyes as an opening of inattention. 

Her left hand snaps out, fingers splayed as two of the thugs fly back against the wall. One of them gets up, an arm hanging useless, but adds his weapon to the barrage of blaster bolts surging towards her at once.

She deflects them all, but is pressed hard by the three remaining gunsels. She moves back towards the street, from where she had managed to push her attackers into the blind alley. She feels a slight note of hopeful triumph in her attacker’s senses.

Ti does manage to smile, as she realizes that she has become more attuned to emotions since her time on this world. Jedi have always had a sense of empathy; a bellwether of emotions, but her time with these beautiful, happy people and their openness had tuned hers more sharply.

She realizes that she is in the street, but the bystanders seem to have been pushed away by something or someone.

She stumbles as her blade is knocked from her hand by a particularly powerful bolt. The thug with the large rotary blaster crows in triumph. 

One microsecond before a blaster bolt opens his forehead, the grin freezing on his face. Another thug falls to a second bolt in rapid succession, the bolt placed precisely where the other had transfixed her compatriot’s forehead. The other two thugs look at one another in fear. This gives Ti the opening to retrieve her saber and simultaneously lift the two up about three meters above the street, rotating them.

Before dropping them to the surface. It is suddenly quiet on the street, except for the groans of the last two and any others that are still able to groan.

She turns slowly. Her eyes widen as she sees the Chief Justiciar, the principal aide to the elected leader, standing with a smoking blaster held muzzle upwards. The smoke still curls from the weapon, until he pulls it to his lips and blows it away. A twirl of the weapon and it rests in a holster at his hip on the belt of his business trousers. 

His mustache twitches as she rolls her eyes at the affectation. Her eyes do linger on his muscled forearms visible under the rolled up sleeves of the undertunic. 

His blue eyes twinkle at her. 

“I didn’t know politicians on this world carry blasters regularly,” she says. She manages not to spit out that one word. 

“Don’t usually,” he says with a lazy grin. “Only if they cut their teeth on these streets.”

She raises her brow.

“I wasn’t always a politician,” he says. “I was the Undersheriff over the Capitoline province. Was going to stand for Reeve of the whole Shire, but my heartbond persuaded me not to.”

“Good to know, Chief Justiciar,” Ti says dryly. 

“Please, Shaak. Call me Bo,” he says. He takes her hand in his and shakes it.

“I—,” he starts. 

He crumples to the ground, as does his driver. 

Ti places her hands to her forehead, as the taste of ashes overwhelms her senses.

+=+=+=+=+=

_Well, this isn’t going as planned_ , Kenobi thinks, as he deflects another bolt away from he and Jaten. 

“You know, maybe we should’ve waited for the Chief Inspector and her team,” Jaten observes. 

“Didn’t I say the exact same thing?” Obi-Wan manages to say, as another Nikto manages to get under his saber and thrust his shoulder into his arm, trying to dislodge his saber. Obi-Wan shifts and connects the butt of his saber between the Nikto’s eyes. The oversized thug drops like a sack of grain.

They had no sooner arrived when they had been swarmed by two Mandos and nearly twenty minions. Obi-Wan had managed to dispatch one of the Mandos and two of their soldiers, before Jaten had sent the other Mando spiraling down by shooting him in the jetpack’s fuel cell. The resulting explosion, as the Mando had abandoned the pack had stunned or killed a couple more of the thugs. The Mando had managed to land on her feet, before opening up with her wrist blasters, sending explosive quarrels towards the pair. 

Jaten holds his side with the opposite hand, the result of a too-close explosion of one of the quarrels. _I’m not truly sure that his ribs healed from being slammed into that phallic symbol of a girder on the roof of those apartments_ , Obi-Wan thinks. He strikes his ear with the palm of his hand, trying to clear the incessant ringing from his ears. 

The twelve Nikto soldiers and their chieftain advance on the pair. Obi-Wan feels Jaten rest against his back. “So,” Jaten says. “Dinner?”

“Right now? I’m all for it. What do you suggest?” Obi-Wan asks, backing two of the thugs away with a feint of his lightsaber.

Jaten shoots another that seems to be bolder than his fellows. “There’s a nice Alderaani place near the station. They know me. You like spicy?”

“Love spicy, within reason. Spent some time on Mandalore.”

“You think you could use some of that knowledge to, oh, _I don’t know_ , maybe take care of that Mando?”

“In a moment. The eight Nikto pressing me have my attention.”

They both fall silent as the thugs attack.

A loud roar cuts into their senses, just before the attack. The Nikto and the Mando turn, as a large ship, a Corellian corvette arcs downward. The ventral hatch opens as several figures leap downward, their own jetpacks slowing their descent. Obi-Wan sees that they are dressed in a mishmash of spacer’s clothing, with one uniform item. 

All have dark green berets tucked in their belts. 

_Damned Corellians. Can’t just land quietly. Always have to make an entrance_ , Obi-Wan thinks. 

He notices that the Nikto have decided that abject cowardice is the better part of valor.

The Mando realizes as well and turns to run.

She recoils as Kanyly na’Torstan’ii buttstrokes her with a riot gun she carries. The helmet snaps off, revealing the face of a young woman, no more than eighteen years old. Two other peacekeepers snap the muzzles of their pistols in her face, while two others start stripping hidden and not-so-hidden weapons from her armor.

“Sorry we’re late,” Kanyly says. Obi-Wan notices she is grimacing and holding her swollen middle, breathing heavily. “Somebody distracted us. Got some intel on another location.”

She moves aside as two peacekeepers escort Lyndia Gorlute to them. Jaten breathes in as he sees the tears streaming from her eyes.

“What is it, Bug?” he asks, taking her in his arms. She turns to where another peacekeeper is holding the leash of Tussie, the _lorna_.

Even Obi-Wan, unfamiliar with the animals, can tell she is in distress, with her mournful baying and growling. 

“What is it? What’s wrong with her?” he asks. 

“She has too much emotional overspill. She was hurting. Even Demon had to get away from her,” Lyndia says, her eyes filled with fear and concern. She chokes. “I think she’s a little better since I got here.”

Jaten looks at Obi-Wan. “It must be concentrated near our house.” His eyes flash to the black. “Near the station. Near the sacristy of the Chalice.”

“Ti,” Obi-Wan breathes.

Jaten nods and turns to Kanyly. 

“Go. We’ll follow. I’ll make sure Lyndia and Tussie are safe.”

As they turn towards Jaten’s speeder, abandoned in the first attack, they miss the figure standing on the roof. 

A figure wearing a mask, a half-instant from intervening in the attack before the cops had arrived. 

The figure makes sure that his shields are in place, before moving to follow the speeder on the rooftops above. 

He drops his blaster and pulls another device from its hidden pouch. 

A cylindrical device that he grasps in a practiced grip, hammered into him from childhood. 

He sighs. _In for a centicred, in for a credit_ , he thinks. 

_You owe me, Kenobi._


	9. The Thanks of the Republic They Died to Save

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Final Battles. Resolution, relief, and revelation.

Ti manages to reach Boman. She can see that he is conscious, but holds his head between his hands. “Go,” he says. “You may not be as affected by her as we are, in this particular case.”

Ti looks over at the driver. He is barely conscious, having surrendered to the _whatever it is_. She closes her eyes, searching her mind and Force sense. She takes a moment to analyze the attack. It seems to come in layers. One, she can feel is directed at her from Lyshaa. She can almost taste the despair; the anger, but a strong amount of fear. She had felt this at the beginning of her last two fights with the young woman.

The other has a different flavor altogether. More powerful, with the colors of anger and madness—but absolutely no fear. This wave, she can tell, is building, as if from a great distance.

This is the level that gives her the taste of ashes in her mouth.

Ti shakes her head, then straightens. She ignites her saber, the azure blade almost a comfort. She feels herself center, if only a bit.

She brings her saber into a one-handed high guard position, its downward point somewhere about the level of Lyshaa’s face. She realizes that her left hand is held straight out, the first two fingers also aimed in the attacker’s direction. She rolls her eyes as she realizes that she is unconsciously mimicking Kenobi’s favorite stance. Somewhere in the two-pronged mind and emotional assault, she is able to add one more finger to the point of her unarmed hand.

 _There. That’s better. Next I’ll be saying ‘hello, there_ ,’ flies through her mind. _Focus, dammit_ , she hears in her mind, in her Corellian master’s piqued voice.

Master Tarith’s annoyed drawl does what it usually does. It brings her back in the moment. She sidesteps a blaster bolt from Lyshaa.

A bolt that she could’ve easily deflected. The perfect angle to deflect it back into Lyshaa’s heart. An ironic target, as Ti is not sure that the organ, in its metaphysical sense, still exists.

The mind and body seem to be the only remnants of the Zeltron soul present. Maybe not even the mind, now, in all of the anger.

She whirls her blade, letting it slice the air in a blur. Lyshaa unleashes several blasts as they continue to close.

“Give up, Lyshaa,” she says, her voice even and calm, in spite of the growing darkness leeching into the edges of her senses. “You don’t have to die.”

“I know,” Lyshaa responds. “But you do, Jedi.”

Ti continues to advance, deflecting the bolts away, being careful to aim them into solid walls, rather than windows. She sees in the bright sunlight that there are no bystanders.

The small speaker near her montral sounds. “All units maintain a perimeter around the sacristy and the station. Special Purposes and the Jedi are on their way.”

 _Good to know_ , she thinks. “Lyshaa, I want to help you. You took something precious from me. Just as you took your family away from this world. From your relatives.”

Lyshaa sneers. “No one remains. My grandfather abandoned us. He left us—even his heartbonds. I cut their throats as well. She lifts the blaster again. “No one will remain for your student, when I slaughter you.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Ti says, her teeth clenching against another onslaught of darkness. “I can help you,” she repeats, more forcefully this time.

“The only thing that will help me is more blood. Yours, mine, some other innocent, it doesn’t matter.” She sends another bolt towards Ti.

Ti curses, then sends the bolt back to Lyshaa, directly into the blaster.

The weapon explodes, just as Lyshaa manages to throw it away.

Ti falls to her knees as the Force wave strikes her full force. She sees Lyshaa reach behind and draw a short, curved sword from its scabbard.

She advances on Ti, twirling the blade. Ti notices the dark/light color of the metal.

 _Beskar_. Not quite as energy resistant as cortosis, but would suffice against a lightsaber.

Ti breathes in, forcing herself to center.

She is unable to rise.

+=+=+=+=+=

Obi-Wan tightens his grip on the doorframe handhold as Jaten twists the yoke of the speeder. The Jedi feels his stomach remain on the main street that the cop had turned off of, taking a tight alley. The landspeeder angulates slightly. Obi-Wan has a brief vision of the road, only centimeters from his face, just before his attention is seized by double crimson blur as a couple leaps out of the way. He smirks as he is able to hear words that can only be testaments to Jaten’s mating habits.

He rolls his eyes as that thought flows across the front of his brain. _Focus your mind, Kenobi_ , he thinks ruefully.

_The main one._

“You do know we’re trying to prevent innocent casualties, right?” Obi-Wan asks through clenched teeth.

“They got out of the way,” Jaten replies nonchalantly, his eyes at least focused on the road. “I sent them a signal from my high-speed Zeltron powers to get the hell out of the way,” he adds dryly. A smile quirks up the visible side of his mouth. “Same ones I’m using on you.”

“Hope it works better on them,” Obi-Wan snarks back.

Jaten’s rejoinder is lost as Obi-Wan’s face is planted on the window by another right-angle turn.

The speeder hurtles out into a larger street. Obi-Wan’s eyes are immediately locked on Ti’s kneeling figure, her lightsaber burning in the shrinking light. As the speeder slams to a stop, Obi-Wan feels the darkness compress around him. He looks at Jaten, who shakes his head. “That doesn’t feel much like what I felt that first time. This is just like our last fight.”

Obi-Wan nods. He closes his own eyes, forcing himself back to the day he had knelt, to fight off the darkness on Naboo. His breathing slows.

Just in time to ignite his saber and block a bolt from behind him. His eyes snap open, his vision blurring as he sees Jaten lift a long gun from the back seat of the speeder and open fire on the mixture of Nikto and thugs who had fled the other scene.

“Thought we left this party behind,” Jaten manages.

“Well, maybe you turned the charm up too much and they’re getting in line.”

“You do know you’re at the head of the line, right, darling?” Jaten replies.

Obi-Wan is unable to answer as he blocks his own attack.

He glances over at Ti. She has managed to rise, is fighting off the clumsy swings and thrusts of Lyshaa and a steel blade. Obi-Wan can see that the blade is successful in blocking Ti’s lightsaber.

He reaches out to Ti, can feel the pain and despair rising. Lyshaa is keeping up a stream of commentary; he can see that the commentary appears to have some affect on Ti.

Her anger is joining the pain and grief. Obi-Wan feels his Force-sense constrict with a powerful wave of darkness. A wave that matches that past onslaught surrounding Maul. He feels his temples begin to pound as the wave increases in intensity.

He looks at Jaten, who has taken cover behind the speeder. The thugs are held at bay, for the moment by his accurate blasterfire. They can both hear sirens approaching, as well as the slight roar of the jetpacks.

Obi-Wan idly wonders if the Corellians will actually bring the corvette over.

Jaten touches his arm, bringing him back to the moment. “Go. She needs you. I’ll be okay.”

They share a look.

Obi-Wan turns to leave, but stops as he sees a figure walking towards Lyshaa and Ti.

The darkness multiplies, its intensity sharpening.

Obi-Wan is pushed back.

+=+=+=+=+=

Lyshaa cries out as Ti manages to block the _beskar_ blade back into her bare shoulder, tearing a hunk of flesh. She curses and swings the blade clumsily under the Jedi’s weapon. For all of her swinging, she is only able to gouge a bit of cloth from the hip of the leggings that Ti wears. Lyshaa smiles as she sees the woman’s concentration broken, as she backpedals. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the other Jedi arrive, as well as the plod who had switched to stun that first night. The night that she had somehow struck several Peacekeepers with her fractured resonance, reflecting all sorts of unfamiliar emotions back at the cops and several of the apartments.

All without being able to taste the emotions herself, or even know how she’d been able to multiply the offensive use of her resonance.

All save one emotion. The raw anger at her species. Those joyous beings with a reputation for pleasure; as well as a mostly unearned one for manipulation and gullibility.

A joy that she had never been able to partake of. She certainly was neither manipulative or gullible.

Ti moves in close for a thrust; Lyshaa manages to avoid it; closes and brings her forehead hard into the Jedi’s. She is sure that the resulting crack could be heard in the Legislative Building, several blocks away. Ti staggers back, but remains standing. Lyshaa’s vision is suddenly fogged by a gush of blood over her face. She realizes that the top of her forehead had been snagged on one of the teeth of the ornate headdress that the Jedi wears. Through the flood, she sees a tiny piece of crimson skin hanging. She strikes out wildly with the stolen blade. She feels something—perhaps what someone would describe as satisfaction as she hears a cry from Ti as the blade bites into the Jedi’s scarlet bicep.

Lyshaa is suddenly forced back with an onslaught of blows that she manages to evade, or partially block. She can see the blade starting to fray.

Then nothing. She takes the respite to wipe the blood from her eyes. Ti is suddenly deflecting blaster bolts from three of the hired thugs.

Lyshaa turns just as something strikes her left arm, jerking it up to her shoulder. A female Trandoshan hisses as the liquid netting charge misses center target. The Trandoshan pulls a blaster and closes with Lyshaa.

Big mistake.

Lyshaa experiences the slight rush of her blood and heartrate as the the blade enters the reptilian’s jaw. She uses all of her strength to push the blade to hilt, up through the thug’s brain.

She realizes that in her rage and blood lust, she is unable to free the blade. She seizes the dying criminal’s blaster from her waist and whirls towards her true opponent.

Just as Ti manages to send three simultaneous bolts back to their sources. The Jedi whirls her blade, watching the four Nikto drop.

She turns to Lyshaa. As they stare at each other, both drop their weapons and clutch their foreheads. Screams erupt from their mouths, as Lyshaa experiences the unknown pressure on her brain from the previous battle on the rooftop. Through her blurring vision, she sees a tall figure walking slowly towards them.

His hands centered on a strange box affixed to his forehead.

Her eyes widen with recognition.

She whispers one word in her native language.

_Zur-abeeyah._

+=+=+=+=+=

Jaten’s arms feel the strain of the long gun’s weight as he targets the small squad of thugs, now minus the four that he had seen Ti (and Lyshaa) take care of it.

He cries out as the pain lances in his head—the pain of something more than the gifts of his people, turned malevolent. The rifle tracks downward. He sees that the thugs are fighting the pain, as well. All but one human, who continues to fire at him. He struggles to raise the rifle back to level.

The thug falls, lanced by two bolts. The Chief Justiciar and his driver-guard manage to slump to their knees next to him. “Hey, bud,” Boman says.

“Hey, old man,” Jaten replies.

“We can’t have the rest of SPU and whoever else coming in affected by this,” Boman says. “Especially—.” He stops, looks away.

Jaten raises his comm. “Kanyly, you need to keep everybody away, until the Jedi can sort this. I don’t know what it is.”

Her reply is lost as both of them stare at the figure approaching Lyshaa and Ti. They see Obi-Wan fighting against the darkness as he starts towards the figure.

“What the hell is he doing here? Where the hell has he been?” Boman asks.

Jaten doesn’t answer, but stares at the Senior Inspector responsible for his demotion. A Senior Inspector who had taken him under his wing, even when others had said that he would never make an Inspector.

At least until the murders of Lyshaa’s family. Kreestate had become withdrawn and obsessive; sullen. He had given in to the whispers of others and had begun to disparage Jaten, in spite of his successes in solving difficult cases.

Culminating when Jaten had exercised basic decency and mercy in refusing to kill Lyshaa outright.

Jaten feels his own anger rise, overwhelming his calm personality. Boman sees this.

“No, Jaten. Don’t. This isn’t you,” the older man says. “This is Lyshaa, and whatever bullshit is in that box on Lornan’s head.”

For the first time, Jaten sees the device. His anger grows as he recognizes the artistry and design, from a long ago seminar.

He sees the pain in Boman’s eyes, pain measured, he knows, in his own eyes.

“The Chalice will have to end him,” he says. “It’s the law, for that little box.”

Boman shakes his head. “We can’t think about her, right now, Jaten. We need to keep him from killing us. Don’t think about the _Bahlan-Ki_ ,” he finishes. _The Mind-Rippers._

Jaten’s anger rises as he thinks of the proscribed order from antiquity. An order who had begun its life to protect, but had been corrupted by its power. Until it had been ended by one of the first Chalices, assisted by one of its order with only a modicum of decency left.

A proscribed order that was the only thing on the Land of Song that brought the death penalty. A death penalty actually performed by the Chalice, ironically using techniques from that order.

An action that would end the Chalice’s term.

Jaten swears to himself that will not happen to the current Chalice. He fights the darkness and rises, heading towards Kreestate. He is only vaguely aware of Boman’s shouts at him.

+=+=+=+=+=

Obi-Wan watches as Jaten approaches the figure. He can see the toll that the assault takes on the young peacekeeper. He stands again.

“Give it up, Lornan. This is not you. You may be an asshole, but you’re not a murderer. You’re an Acolyte-Senior Inspector of the Chalice of Omri,” Jaten says.

Obi-Wan feels his insides clinch at the words; the title revealed.

“Get away from me, you little bastard,” Kreestate replies. “You know nothing about me.”

“I know you were a good cop. You may not have been the most empathetic, but you always sought justice for victims.”

“That was before I became one myself,” Kreestate says. “Before this little spawn decided that she had to slaughter them—.” He stops talking, as if he has revealed too much.

“Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you abandoned that family, you son of a bitch,” Lyshaa manages to say, as both women try to rise.

Obi-Wan takes this in, as he struggles against the darkness, as well as the emotional feedback pounding at him. He fights his way to Jaten’s side. Jaten looks at him, his eyes pained. He shakes his head at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan touches his arm, grinning at him. Obi-Wan turns back to face Kreestate. “She’s your family, Inspector,” he yells. “You can’t do this!”

“What would you know of family, Jedi?” Kreestate replies. “What would you know of the loss of a child. Of watching the child of that grow into a monster? You don’t even know what it means to have a child—to watch her grow.”

Obi-Wan feels his anger spike in the darkness. He looks up, realizing that the bright sunny day has turned cloudy; that rain has started to pelt them. To sizzle against his and Ti’s lightsaber blades.

“Neither would you, _zur-abeeyah_ ,” Lyshaa screams.

Obi-Wan looks questioningly at Jaten. “Grandfather,” he says. Obi-Wan looks at Ti, on the ground, struggling to rise. He sees understanding in her eyes.

Just before the her teeth clinch and the anger flows to those eyes—usually, as she had told him, the harbinger of a foretold master huntress on her world, in her culture.

He watches her reel as Lyshaa manages to connect on her jaw with a punch. Obi-Wan gasps as he starts towards her, feeling as if he is swimming in the onslaught and the rain.

He feels a warm hand on his wrist, above the saber. He turns to Jaten. His eyes widen as he sees the look in the peacekeeper’s eyes.

Obi-Wan feels his heart contract, but not with darkness at this moment. He lifts his unencumbered hand to Jaten’s clasping it for a brief moment. He straightens as the darkness recedes.

He looks at Ti, the rage growing on her features, as she punches Lyshaa back, once, twice, three times, in rapid succession.

“Go to her, Obi-Wan,” Jaten says. “She needs you.” His eyes have already transitioned to the black, with an accompanying warmth, rather than the burning heat through Obi-Wan’s body. “I’ll see what I can do for Lornan.”

As Obi-Wan turns to face his friend, the warmth fades for a moment, as he realizes what he might have to do. He takes a deep breath and moves.

As he does, he sees a tall figure walk out into the square, out of the corner of his eye. He watches as she drops the hooded cloak, revealing a pure white gown with a purple mantle.

“I think we might be getting a bit of help,” Jaten observes dryly as they move away from each other.

+=+=+=+=+=

Ti burns from within. She is conscious of the tall Zeltron approaching the center of the broad avenue. She can feel the anger rolling off of Lyshaa, as Ti throws her back with a flick of her wrist. She opens herself to the anger; the fear of her complicity in Atti’s and Fe Sun’s deaths. The whispers in the Temple corridors, in the Council chambers. Even the pitying look of her closest companions. Luminara Unduli. Obi-Wan Kenobi—even Plo Koon, whose facial expressions are unreadable, but his Force-sense oozes with pity.

She realizes that the taste of ashes overwhelms all of her usual senses, the red haze over her vision takes care of the unusual ones. The dual edges of the assault—one on her Force sense and most of her being, the one on her emotions that seems to be receding—cloud everything.

She barely feels the rain; barely smells the wet cloth of her undertunic and leggings; barely hears the sizzle of the liquid against the blade of her saber.

She manages to hear Kenobi’s cry, approaching her, as he fights his own battle against the dark.

A strong wind has blown up, forcing her to strengthen her hold on her blade. Lyshaa screams and uses the wind to force herself towards Ti, scooping up the beskad. Ti gives a growl and shoves back with both hands, throwing Lyshaa against a far wall.

The young woman sags. Ti feels nothing like satisfaction. A Force-sprint and she stands over the stunned woman. She once again finds herself holding her blade with two hands high over her head, the blade pointing vertically at Lyshaa’s face.

She sees Lyshaa’s eyes grow clear. She stares defiantly at Ti. “I guess, we’re not all that different, Jedi,” she says, with no inflection.

Ti cries out, raising her saber higher. She feels the slight disruption of the air behind her, of another Force-sprint. She senses the pain in Kenobi, as he places the now-deactivated hilt of his lightsaber against her back.

Level with her heart.

She prepares.

In an instant, the metal of the blade is replaced by his hand. She pauses; turns to look at him. His eyes are clear of the darkness, the blue gaze intense in its compassion.

“You’re better than this, my friend. You’re nothing like a Sith.” He raises one side of his mouth in a wry grin. “I’m no expert, but I know a little.”

She is about to reply, when she hears a familiar voice.

Or voices.

Ti looks over, far away from the action. She sees a sturdy Noorian, his green and gold striped eyes flashing a grin. Her eyes widen and she gasps as her eyes fall on the slight figure that Atti nonchalantly leans on.

Fe Sun gives her a toothy grin, similar sharp incisors to her own, bared.

 _You’re better than this my Master_ , the wraith says.

Atti nods. _We’re proud of you_ , he adds.

 _It’s time for you to live. There is one who needs you_ , she hears both of them say. The smiles glow in their brilliance. _There’s one that you need._

She shakes her head. Both of her padawans are gone.

In there place is a small figure. A gray-furred mop of a cub from her home-world.

His gold-flecked green eyes staring at her. Laughing. Joyous.

His life ahead of him. As his hers.

She lowers her lightsaber, de-activating her blade.

She turns and walks away. She ignores the scene behind her at least for a time.

Shaak Ti spares no glance for Lyshaa.

+=+=+=+=+=

Lornan feels the anger burning him, as if he is in his own pit of lava, like those found on the southern islands. He can feel the box embedded in his head, the modern version of an ancient, proscribed device, beginning to unravel, its molecular structure falling apart.

In the fire of his vision, he can almost see the disintegration at that low level. His brain in its fog feels like it is unraveling as well.

His heart seizes as he is able to concentrate on the vision approaching him. In spite of the darkness flowing through him, from the device, his breathing slows.

“Dea,” he whispers.

Her always black eyes stare at him, “What the hell are you doing, Lornan?” she asks sharply.

His smile fades. He snarls at her. “I’m fixing our mistake,” he says.

“What mistake is that? The mistake that we loved each other once, before my duty—my life called me to a different path?”

“Did you ever think to check on our child. The child you bore? In your new ‘path’?” The last word is spit out with his anger. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the watching cops and Jedi slump with a new wave of pain.

“I couldn’t,” she cries. “I had the responsibility of an entire world. A slight difference, and the responsibility would’ve been yours. You were the other potential Chalice.”

“Maybe I should have been. Then our daughter wouldn’t have been harmed by your selection when she was in the womb.” He sobs. “Maybe she wouldn’t have given birth to such an abomination.”

She shakes her head. “You’ve got it wrong,” she says. He can see the tears forming in the obsidian gaze. “She wasn’t an abomination. She was a third potential to replace me. The signs were right. But you wouldn’t let her be tested. You wouldn’t let her be known. So that maybe she could’ve gotten help. You just abandoned her and our child.”

“You didn’t even bother to find out for yourself,” he screams.

She looks down. “Yes. I know. But I woke up from giving birth and the Chalice was already there to pass on the gift.” Her eyes lances him when they rise. “We both would’ve died if I hadn’t taken it.”

Her eyes begin to smolder through the tears. “You bastard. This only ends with your trial. My gift is failing. I’ll have to give it to the Fayga girl. She’ll immediately give it up, to whoever the next generation’s potential is. She’ll lose it the instant that she executes you.”

She raises her finger at him. “You’ll be responsible for leaving our world defenseless.”

His pain stops. “I know. There’s only one way for this to end.”

Her eyes widen as he raises his hands to the remains of the box. The pain and fire increases in his mind.

He sees her close her eyes. He looks around at the other Zeltrons. They rise, closing their eyes as well.

He pushes harder, but feels the combined resonances of the small group push back against him.

The power of the Chalice, on a small scale. A power usually exercised on a planetary scale only, against external threats. Last exercised over a dozen years ago during an invasion by a consortium of pirates, led by Iaco Stark.

A time of overwhelming joy—overwhelming in the truest sense.

The light builds in his head. The memories cascade. The first time he had seen the awkward teenager who now stands before him, a graceful, strong woman. He sees his daughter growing up with his new heart-bonds, after that awkward teenager was chosen for a different destiny. There is no more pain, even as the box cracks and falls away. His last clear image is of the two Jedi staring in awe.

His vision fades, the light swelling to the center of his sight.

Lanadea Stroyan, the Chalice of Omri fills his mind’s eye, as warmth, not fire suffuses his body.

+=+=+=+=+=

Ti turns around, just as the rain stops. With preternatural speed, the the clouds part, with Zel bursting through. She and Obi-Wan watch as Dea crouches by Lornan Kreestate’s head. She lifts his head into her lap and hugs him to her.

Ti takes a deep breath as her body relaxes. She turns to Kenobi. They gaze at one another, suddenly very tired.

“Thank you,” she says simply.

He smiles and nods slightly.

Truly relaxes for the first time in months. She feels the top part of the white ovals around her eyes move under her headdress. An inkling of a familiar sensation eases through her senses. A sensation that only recently had touched her—the light and warmth of this world. Obi-Wan stares at her. She is sure that he might be finding a more distant memory of those same sensations.

Ti hears Jaten Gorlute’s voice. “Stop her!”

Lyshaa has started to run from where Ti had left her. She takes a deep breath.

Lyshaa slams into nothingness. A nothingness that knocks her unconscious.

A figure steps out of the alleyway, lowering his muscled arms. He is masked, clad in a version of Mando armor.

Ti grins as she feels the familiarity rise as his shields drop. Kenobi groans and rolls his eyes. He touches Jaten’s arm, pushing the gun hand down. “As much as I hate to admit it, he’s with us.”

The figure pulls his mask and hood off, revealing a bright yellow tattoo over a wide grin.

Ti smiles at the cropped braids, his skull shaven close except for the top. Ti idly wonders if she should tell him that he resembles holos that she has seen of a very young padawan named Mace Windu.

Quinlan Vos walks up to her as Bailiffs place binders on Lyshaa. A young man, wearing a white robe and a laurel wreath on his head walks up to her. He kneels, pulling a strange device and placing it on her head. Lights flash. A young healer, last seen leading Obi-Wan Kenobi to a medical transport, injects Lyshaa with something. Ti sees her face actually relax.

She feels a touch on her arm. She turns.

“Hello, Shaak,” Quin says. His grin widens. “You look good.” He moves his fingers to her sleeveless undertunic. “I like the look.”

Ti is unable to speak, as she is staring at Kenobi. Or rather, at Kenobi and Jaten. The two are kissing, their hands in each other’s hair.

She turns and touches Quin’s face. “So what are you doing here?”

“A little bog troll thought it might be good for my health to explore Ord Mantell and Zeltros. Might’ve just blown my chances of being a Falleen Prince’s consort. At least his rebound,” he says ruefully.

Ti laughs. Both turn at a commotion near the peacekeeper vehicles. She sees Boman, the Chief Justiciar bound into one of the speeders and spins it, throwing gravel and Bailiffs out of the way. Boman guns it, the warning sirens and lights warbling and flashing.

Jaten breaks free from Kenobi for a moment, pulls his comm and glances at it. He nods and smiles. “Kanyly’s water broke. Hopefully he gets there in time.”

Kenobi raises a ginger eyebrow. “He’s the father? I got the impression they didn’t like each other.”

Jaten shakes his head. “The fact that she moved into the province is the reason he took the political job.” His grin widens. “Their world may get a bit more frantic. Their oldest daughter is about to give birth to her first.”

Ti shakes her head at those words. Neither Kanyly nor Boman looked to be out of their early thirties, at most.

Quin turns her chin back to him. “I think both you and Kenobi might owe me. Think I might collect back at the Temple.” He smirks. “Although Kenobi might be too tired.”

She gives a predator’s smile. “I’ll spring for dinner at that greasy diner Kenobi likes.”

His expression indicates that might suffice. At least for a bit.

She falls silent as she sees others crowd around Dea. The young woman—Lyndia—the one whose blood indicated near-Force-sensitivity, a condition that had nearly overwhelmed her, helps the Chalice to her feet. Dea watches as Lornan is lifted by a stretcher-droid. Ti can see his chest rising and falling shallowly. His eyes remain open and staring.

Ti pulls her eyes to Dea. She feels her heart sink as Dea’s eyes transition rapidly from the black to a trifle lighter blue, and back.

Lyndia helps her away, the young woman’s companion, Tussie, leading the way.

A slightly shorter woman, dressed in the same light robe as Dea, sans the purple mantle and a bronze rather than silver circlet in her hair, stands waiting.

+=+=+=+=+=

The Sith throws the remnants of the tiny box away in disgust. He stands from his kneeling position and stumbles to a comm. He activates it.

He stares balefully at the Zeltron. “That was an abject failure, Dr. Laken.” He raises his hand, then drops it as the academic begins to choke. The Sith calms. “I think that your arcane technology might not be enough for the Jedi.”

“Perhaps. But I can only continue to research. There’s risk for me, especially if the projector ever awakens. I don’t think he will.”

“That is your problem. You may continue your experiments, especially in a more controlling direction, than direct attack.” He lifts his hand again. “Never contact me again. My new apprentice will contact you, when needed.”

“How will I know him?” Laken asks.

“He’ll find you,” comes the reply. The comm fades. He crushes the comm, then removes the concealing hood. He closes his eyes, the drops the rest of the dark cloak, revealing an expensive burgundy suit. He smooths his hair back and steps through a door. He finds himself in an ornate fresher. He takes a deep breath, paints a politician’s smile on his face and steps out.

“Forgive me, your Majesty,” he says to the woman in the ornate traveling robes. He bows.

After a moment, Queen Amidala returns his bow. Her eyes widen as they fall on him. “Chancellor, you’re bleeding,” she says in her slightly modulated voice.

A Handmaiden walks up to him and gives him a pure white handkerchief from her sleeve. He smiles gratefully and holds it up to his nose. He looks at the scarlet splashes, then focuses his eyes on his guest.

“It’s nothing, your Majesty. A summer cold and a dehumidifier turned up too high in my quarters,” he says, his voice smooth.

Padme’ Amidala nods. “I hope so, your Excellency. The Republic can’t afford for you to be sick. Please take care of yourself.”

Sheev Palpatine merely smiles at the fifteen-year-old Queen.


	10. The Lives of Cubs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dear Madam,--_
> 
> _I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle._
> 
> _I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save._
> 
> _I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom._
> 
> _Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,_
> 
>    
>  _A. Lincoln_

The first thing that Ti sees as she quietly enters the medcenter room is Boman Torstan’ii lying next next to his heart-bond in the bed, the tiny crimson bundle cradled between them. The bundle; her body apparently one big wrinkle, has a wisp of dark hair sticking up from the center of her head, Ti notices. All three are sleeping, two of them the sleep of the new mother and father. 

The other, Danailaan ne Torstan’ii, stretches and yawns. Ti and the other person in the room, who stands next to the bed, alternating stroking Boman and Kanyly’s hair, hold their breath, until the newborn falls back asleep. 

Ti smiles as her eyes fall on the purple mantle over the figure’s hair. Her eyes widen when the figure turns and bows her head. 

A stranger stares out at her with the permanent _Modula_. Ti realizes that the young woman stands a bit shorter than Dea, with shining, dark blue hair under the purple. She stares at Ti with a glint of amusement and a searching look—deeper than the usual appraisal.

She motions with her head to the anteroom of the suite. Once the door is closed behind them, the Chalice turns, bowing her head to Ti again. Ti dips her head.

“My lady Knight,” the woman says. Ti’s eyes widen at the polished Core accent. 

The Chalice gives a broad smile. “I attended university and graduate school in the Core,” she says. “My parents worked on Coruscant for most of my childhood.”

“Is the former Chalice—?” Ti starts to ask, dreading the answer.

The smile softens. “She’s fine. We were able to complete the Shift in time.” She looks away, her black eyes tearing slightly. “She’s heartbroken. At the loss of her child, who she never knew. At Lornan.” She gathers herself. “At the probable execution of Lyshaa.”

Ti looks questioningly at her. “I didn’t think Zeltros had the death penalty for murder,” she observes. 

The Chalice shakes her head. “We don’t. In the investigation, we found certain texts that are proscribed by law, among her possessions. Because of the horror that they caused in our past, possession of them and study of them carry the death penalty.”

“That’s what Dea meant. You’ll have to carry it out.”

“Yes. It’s called ‘mind-ripping.’ A painful experience for both the executioner and the condemned.”

She is silent for a moment. “I will down in history as having the shortest tenure as Chalice in our history.”

“Would Lyndia become the Chalice?” Ti asks gently.

“Your insights into our culture do you credit, my Lady,” the Chalice says. “But no. As soon as I became Chalice, her potentiality faded. She still has the residual side affects, which we’ve never seen before in one who is not selected for choosing. The next potentials would not come until I start showing signs of losing the Pour.”

Ti doesn’t ask the meaning of the last word.

“This is a strange time, “ the Chalice says. “We’ve never had three potentials—including one that we would consider ‘wild’.” She stares out the window. “We’ve never had a child born of the new Chalice, just as she was undergoing the Shift. Nor have we ever had a child born of two potentials.”

“Is Lyndia’s sickness the result of being a potential?”

“We don’t know. This whole thing is only a little less mysterious to us than it is to you. It’s why we keep it secret. Potentials with that range of midichlorians, as you call them, suffer from different issues, depending on the level. Lyndia suffers from a oversensitivity of emotions. Generally these are activated by trauma.”

“And Lornan?” Ti asks. 

“He suffered— _no, suffers,_ from a decline of his emotional resonance. We think it was triggered by Lyshaa’s murders of her family.”

“The symptoms skipped a generation?”

The Chalice nods. “Yes. Their daughter never exhibited anything. But Lornan was paranoid about something. He never presented Lyshaa for testing. We only discovered they were related a few hours before, by connecting their genetic material.”

“What will become of him?” Ti asks. 

“I think fortunately for both he and Dea, he will probably never wake up. Scans indicate there’s no brain activity.” She looks away. “Dea had done her part. She’d never had any contact with him or the child. Until Lyshaa went on her rampage. Lornan pushed his way into becoming the lead investigator. No one suspected; he was a good cop—dedicated to the point of obsession. His bosses knew he was estranged from any family.”

“If he never wakes up, you won’t have to execute him,” Ti observes. “Where is Dea? I’d like say farewell,” Ti says.

The Chalice shakes her head. “She’s offworld. She was Chosen at a young age, her mid-teens, really. She had never been off of Zeltros. Now that she is the Emeritus, she can travel. She needs to recover from all of this. She wasn’t technically supposed to use the Pour against a localized internal threat. It’s reserved for the direst of external—world-threatening assaults.”

Ti nods. “So that’s why you’ve never been invaded? Successfully?” she adds. 

The Chalice gives a warm smile again. “I couldn’t possibly comment.” Ti laughs with her. 

Ti watches as the woman grows sad again. “She will feel her granddaughter’s death,” she whispers. Ti can see the beginnings of tears in her eyes. She closes her own eyes. 

Ti makes a decision, then opens them, capturing the Chalice in her gaze. “I claim Lyshaa for Republic justice, for the murder of my padawan, Fe Sun.”

After a moment, the Chalice smiles, then nods. 

Ti continues. “While individual worlds may have the death penalty, the Republic does not, at least for those judged insane. She will be taken to the psychiatric wing of the prison on Brentaal IV, where she will be evaluated. She will stand trial when they feel that she can.”

The Chalice appears overcome for a moment. Ti smiles as she sees hope. 

“You’re quite merciful, my Lady Knight.” She smiles. “Dea was different than other Chalices. Normally, our identities were kept as closely guarded secrets. She had been Chalice for so long, I don’t think she gave a damn.”

After a moment, she nods slightly. “My name is Alyysina,” she says. “I think that I might someday carry on her tradition, but for now—.”

“I will hold it close, Alyysina.” Ti replies. “As to the other, revenge is not the Jedi way. I am a Jedi,” she says, her tone confident and firm.

Alyysina looks away. “I have a daughter, now under the protection of her father, on another world. To her, I am dead. It’s the price of being Chosen. I had twelve years with her.”

She shakes her head; to Ti’s surprise, she pulls her into a deep embrace. Ti squeaks as she feels Alyysina’s hands ghost to her rear and squeeze. She smiles at the mischievous expression and slight giggle from the Chalice, as well as the expression of the unbound joy and life of these people, even expressed in this way.

She hears a whisper in her montrals. “Dea did give me a message for you,” Alyysina says. “She says that when she’s able, she’ll look you up on Coruscant. I have it on good authority she may be elected as our Senator by the resonance.” Ti feels the grin against her shoulder. “She says she’ll try not to embarrass you.” She reaches up and kisses Ti on the cheek. “She also said to remind you that everything we do is about love.”

At the mention of Coruscant, Ti thinks of her next step. She thinks of a young human with an irrepressible grin. She smiles as she thinks of Dea’s words.

_May not just apply to the people of the Land of Song, she thinks. Might be what being a Jedi is about._

Although not many would admit it.

+=+=+=+=+=

Obi-Wan Kenobi shudders as the explosions paint bright colors on his eyelids. He manages to pull them open as he hears cries increasing in the night. 

Only a moment later he realizes that the cries are coming from him.

He looks down at his middle; sees the midnight black eyes staring back at him, the skin crinkled in a smile that is obscured by the owner’s attention to the task at hand.

Jaten gives him a final kiss, then lays his head on Obi-Wan’s belly. Both of them catch their breaths while staring at each other; Jaten now through his charcoal-gray eyes. Obi-Wan realizes with a start that Jaten’s own finish had occurred, even though Obi-Wan had been unable to reciprocate. He raises his eyebrows, a move that Jaten mirrors. 

“Hoodoo,” is all the newly restored and promoted Acolyte-Senior Inspector, says.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes as memories of the dark emotions he had experienced move to the forefront of his consciousness. The emotions that had affected him before Lornan Kreestate had used some arcane connection to the Force to darken those emotions even further. 

Try as he might, he was unable to get more answers about them. Jaten and Kanyly had merely said that Zeltrons can use their resonance in self-defense, but it usually takes two family members or more to heighten them to that intensity; outside of the immediate vicinity.

Even unacknowledged ones. He wonders if Ti is able to get anything more from her inquiries. 

Obi-Wan pushes the memories to the back of his mind as a warm hand moves up to his cheek. He realizes that Jaten has pulled his body up to where his face is next to Obi-Wan’s. He looks up into the gray eyes, transitioning to the black, yet again. He feels the resonance opening up; working on rushing the blood to a certain part. 

A certain part on the young officer that is now again proving the functionality of its blood flow. Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, then reaches up and and kisses the peacekeeper, allowing his tongue to enter Jaten’s mouth. His eyes widen at the tastes. He rolls over on top of Jaten, intending to take a tiny bit more control. 

When they break away, Obi-Wan realizes he is laying on the injured ribs. He rises up, but stops as Jaten grasps him, testing the blood flow, pulling him down with his free arm.

“It’s okay, Obi-Wan. Feels nice to have some warmth there. The bacta and painkillers are helping.”

Obi-Wan moves to his side, pulling Jaten over on his side and closer. “You used that hoodoo on me,” he says sheepishly.

Jaten laughs. “I told you. It only works because your emotions—,”

“—are already there. Yes, I know,” Obi-Wan finishes. His mouth moves down to Jaten’s chest, his teeth scoring the skin.

When he stops, he looks at Jaten directly. “You know this is all this is, right? I have to go back to the Order.”

Jaten smiles, reaches up and kisses him. “I know. For me, it’s more than just a night. We connect with the heart and the mind, as well as the body.” He grins, looking much younger, even though there is only a half-decade between them. His hand tightens on Obi-Wan; begins to stroke. “Although the body connection isn’t half-bad.”

Obi-Wan makes to rise over him, before the peacekeeper shoves him onto his back, then climbs on top of him. After a brief struggle, Obi-Wan looks down at Jaten. Jaten lifts his legs and opens them, his hand continuing to stroke. As Obi-Wan moves towards his middle, the Jedi incongruously thinks of what he has learned in the last few days on this world.

Not just from Ti, with the beginnings of life, rather than just existence, again; but from two young women, one with a gift and a curse, and another, a half-human who was finding her own path. Both of them learning and teaching about finding a path, even when desperate. One learning from and teaching the man whose cries rise in the night under Obi-Wan’s rhythmic movements. 

The same desperation that he, Ti, and even Anakin had felt in different ways.

Before he and his fellow Jedi had come to this beautiful world and encountered its joyous people.

Encounters that allowed each to learn, teach, and grow.

+=+=+=+=+=

Lyndia watches the figure in front of the large viewport as the stars twist into blue hyperspace. She is fascinated by the stars, but she feels that she would be intruding to walk up beside Dea; someone who has never seen this destruction either. She knows that the Chalice-Emeritus is lost in her painful thoughts, both for the loss of her love from long ago; someone she had grown into an easy and companionable working relationship with in a short time, and her newfound granddaughter, who had murdered her lost daughter. A daughter she had given up for her world. 

Just as Alyysina Faygan had given up her near-teen daughter. A daughter being raised by foster parents. Her father had made many enemies as the king-maker of his world and his sector. Enemies that wouldn’t hesitate to exploit, or harm her, if the connection was known.

Tussie, is under no such constraints of social conventions. She runs up next to Dea, looking excitedly at the stars. Dea looks down and smiles. She strokes the hairy head, right in the middle of the laurel wreath that somehow has stayed on the lorca’s head.

Lyndia touches a like-object on her own head. The symbol, with her white gown, of an Acolyte-Adept of the Chalice of Omri. In her case, the Chalice-Emeritus. She cautiously opens her resonance. Only murmurs of the crew’s emotions are felt. She smiles.

“Come over here, my girl. Come let an old woman lean on you, as well as this beast,” Dea says. 

She walks up and rests her head on Dea’s shoulders. They are both tall, of a height. Dea pulls her to her, then reaches over and kisses her. 

“We’ll both find answers, I think, my dear. You’ll be back keeping your brother straight in no time.”

Lyndia rests her forehead against Dea’s bare arm. “I know, my Lady. I left Demon the tooka to look after him and tell him off every once in a while.”

They both laugh. “I think a certain handsome Jedi might be taking care of him for a few days.”

Lyndia nods. “Yeah. Too bad I didn’t get to further the auditions for the privilege,” she says with a sly grin.

“Who knows? Maybe after the fact.”

Lyndia feels the tears flow to her eyes as she thinks of her brother, as well as the remnant of sadness that she can detect through Tussie from this powerful woman. Powerful even without the powers that had chosen her, as her gift and her curse.

She pulls them both tightly to her; lorca and Chalice.

+=+=+=+=+=

The tiny being known as Thittan, a product of two worlds, one chosen, one not, eyes his nephew quietly. Xizor rises from the tub, toweling himself off.

“I will let it slide that the mercenary you recommended failed in his mission,” the Prince says sharply. 

Thittan smiles. _Probably because you are an idiot and couldn’t run a therrul kennel without me, he thinks. Or the fact that your hand-chosen Mandos and their thugs failed as well._

“I thank you for your mercy, my Prince.”

Xizor grunts. “It must be your human father’s side that failed, not my grandmother’s side.”

 _There it is. The slight of a slave who had no choice in the matter_ , flows through his mind. He sends a prayer to the memory of his Corellian father. A smile crosses his lips. _Although to hear it, he enjoyed life to the fullest once he escaped, from the amount of known and unknown brothers and sisters I have in the galaxy_.

His mind focuses on the task at hand. “Our sources say the Zeltron has been taken to Brentaal IV,” he says. 

Xizor is thoughtful. “Make sure our assets inside are informed. We’ll continue to test her. Perhaps she can still be of use.”

Thittan bows and leaves the room. He will inform the assets, but he will also inform one of those numerous brothers and sisters. One with a certain reptilian reputation in the galaxy at large.

+=+=+=+=+

Anakin watches as the shuttle arcs for a landing. He realizes how much he had missed his master, even if he didn’t understand him most of the time.

Even if his master didn’t understand him.

The older initiate eyes the shuttle as well. Older, but shorter even than Anakin’s ten year old height—height that had increased over the last year in the abundant food and regular, conditioned exercise of the Temple. 

The initiate’s green eyes flash with excitement, even though he maintains a slight bit of decorum as hangar page. If Anakin were older, he might think of the initiate’s slightly indistinct features as something other than ‘weird’.

The ramp lowers. Anakin starts forward. The page clears his throat, then shakes his head, his face breaking out into a broad, crooked grin.

Anakin follows Croft up to his master and Knight Ti. Both of the younglings bow to the older Knights. 

To his surprise, master Obi-Wan kneels to his level. He holds out his hand and takes Anakin’s, just as they did when they were introduced. “Hello, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “You’ve grown a bit, only in a week.” 

Anakin grins as he sees his master wince at the platitude. He shakes it off. “Yep. Still look down on Initiate Croft.” 

Obi-Wan laughs at the thunderous expression from the Corellian, currently leading Ti over to Master Yoda.

“You should go see Master Yoda, master,” Anakin says. “We can talk afterwards, if you have time.”

“I’ll make time, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “I promised to tell you about the mission. Maybe we’ll go to Dex’s.”

Anakin’s mind suddenly focuses on grease and sugar. He stops. He notices that Obi-Wan suddenly sounds human again—just as he had as Master Qui-Gon’s padawan. Something has changed; something ever so small.

Anakin vows that he will make his master proud of him; that he will be the best padawan.

He doesn’t know that his master has grown a bit as well in a week. Not just in the larger-than-life stature that Anakin looks up to.

As a person. 

Even in his youth; his inexperience, there will be many stumbles in their path. 

But they are at least on a path.

+=+=+=+=+=

Yoda watches the two knights, the padawan, and the initiate as they break apart. He smiles slightly at the changes in Ti and Kenobi. Kenobi has a newfound ease in his interactions with young Skywalker. There will still be clashes; the path of the Chosen One is still uncertain. Perhaps this ease will also ameliorate the darkness that clouds Yoda’s senses and thoughts of the prophecy. 

He turns his attention to Ti, smiling down at Croft as he stares up at her and uncharacteristically stammers his way through a greeting. He senses the peace surrounding her, of purpose. He is quite sure that the young reprobate might have some small something to do with it.

Yoda sees Ti and Kenobi trade looks. Smiles are apparent on both faces, human and Togruta. 

There might be other forces at work than just the young ones. Lessons shared by the older Jedi. Lessons not exactly taught by the Jedi, but from the world they had just left.

He feels his face grow serious, as he thinks of the reports filed by the pair before they had left Zeltros. The source of the dark side of the Force had not been determined. The box had been destroyed, leaving only the word of the Zeltrons that it was a proscribed device from their antiquity. The peacekeeper, Kreestate, still had no evidence of Force-ability. His midichlorian count had shrunk even from when he had been tested as a youngling.

After a while, he would send Master Plo to Zeltros to investigate. As Ti and Kenobi approach, he smiles and shakes his head slightly, releasing them to the young. 

He stares after them thoughtfully. He chews on the top of his gimer stick as he waits on his hoverchair.

At least there is light and life present in a small corner of the universe.

+=+=+=+=+=

Ti comes awake, momentarily confused as to where she is. A length of warm olive skin against hers reminds her. Luminara Unduli murmurs in her sleep. Ti smiles as she feels a kiss on her breast from Nara’s position in the crook of her right arm. The touches and tastes; the soft words and the expanding light of the earlier hours flows back to her mind’s eye, cleansing her of the pain, and reinforcing the joy of the week on Zeltros. 

She hears a snort against her skin. “You’re thinking again, Shaak,” Luminara whispers. “Not supposed to be doing that here.”

“Well, after what you’ve done to my brains over the last few hours, I was just checking to see if they still worked or not.”

Luminara does something that Ti has never heard from the serious Mirialan. She giggles. 

Ti remembers opening the door to her quarters, after being escorted down by Taliesin Croft, who had taken it upon himself to ‘make sure she had gotten to her quarters. Apparently guarding her from the unknown dangers of the corridors from the hangar to the housing areas. She had nearly laughed at the expression on his open, mobile features as the door had opened and Luminara had turned, her hair-covering off, clad in a lighter robe that probably exposed more than the Initiate had seen before. Ti had shooed him away—the thirteen year old had retreated gratefully, but not without at least a couple of glances back. 

Luminara smiles, bringing Ti to the present. “Guess I made somebody’s month,” she says ruefully. Her blues eyes lock on Ti’s in the low light of the dawn. “You made mine when you came in, put your gear down, then walked over to me and asked if you could touch my hair. That’s a big thing among my people, not necessarily just seeing my hair.”

Ti reaches down and kisses her gently. “Just as big as you asking permission to touch my lekku,” she says. 

She looks down, then shakes her head. “You’d think I was a padawan again, as much ‘experimentation’ I’ve been doing in the last few weeks.”

Their laughter is low, but in harmony. When it calms, Luminara looks at Ti. She gathers her courage. “Speaking of padawans, that Corellian does seem a likely candidate.”

Ti can see her waiting, her eyes betraying her concern that she has re-opened wounds. Ti moves her teeth down to Luminara’s neck, biting gently, then kissing it. “Matchmaking again, Luminara?”

Luminara’s relief is palpable. “Whatever do you mean?” she manages to ask innocently. 

“I mean that I’m very sure that the reason that I found Quinlan Vos between my legs before I left is because a little bird with blue eyes and tattoos on her chin shoved him in my direction. In spite of her innocent denials.”

Luminara grins broadly, raising a dark eyebrow. “Huh. I didn’t have to push either of you very hard. Good thing we solved that problem.” Her sentence is punctuated by the beginnings of a loud snore from the ‘matchmaking experiment’ lying on his back against Ti’s other side. She runs her fingers through the stubble on the bare skin under the still-much-shortened Kiffar locks.

Both women smile at each other, looking tenderly at Vos. Ti turns back to Luminara, hoping she can whisper over the cacophony. “Getting back to your original question, I think yes. In a few weeks, I’m going to petition the Council to Choose him. He’s passed all of his Initiate trials; no one chose him then.”

Luminara nods, her eyes betraying nothing. To Ti’s relief, she doesn’t ask if Ti feels ready. She takes a deep breath. Plo Koon had given her the same understanding sensation when they had discussed the subject. Plo had been the one to tell her that Croft had passed his Initiate trials.

Nara looks at Ti. “I think that you’re a born teacher, Shaak,” she says, the emotion apparent in her voice. Ti looks away, her own eyes tearing. “You’ve lost, but you’ve proven that you wouldn’t let the losses rule your life.”

Ti turns back. “I needed a bit of help,” she whispers. “To find my path.” In her mind’s eye, she sees Obi-Wan, Plo, Luminara, and even Vos. She feels Dea’s warm hand against her heart. _They will always be there._

“Could we stop talking about padawans and such?” asks the owner of the out-of-sync speederbike engine. “I’ll never have a padawan,” Vos continues, his eyes closed. “They cramp my style.”

“Who the hell would have you, man-child?” Ti and Luminara ask simultaneously. They had both seen Vos looking at a certain Twi’lek Initiate during the first phase of trials. Analyzing her skill at easily dismantling her lightsaber opponents, his usually laughing eyes serious.

Ti shakes her head. She sits up and moves over him, straddling his middle. She sees Luminara move to his head, her eyes locked on Ti’s.

 _At least the snoring is muffled_ , she thinks, as Luminara Unduli reaches over and kisses her, an instant before cries erupt from both of them.

As the light begins to build, she sees the Mother, her cub next to her, in her mind. She can feel the satisfaction in the _akul’s_ mind. 

She is not sure if the satisfaction is at the life that spirals in Ti’s consciousness, from her partners, or from the life inherent in her choice.

Ti decides that it doesn’t really matter. 

She lives.

+=+=+=+=+= 

**From the journals of Jame Blackthorn, 500th Covenant of Corellia (once known as the Jedi Knight Taliesin Croft)**

_It was not meant to be at that time. When Master Ti appeared before the Council, to formalize the choosing, they soundly rejected her._

_‘It’s too soon, they said. We let you take a padawan too soon after the loss of your first. You weren’t ready.’_

_As if implying that my Master was to blame for Fe Sun’s death. Because ‘she wasn’t ready.’_

_Even at age thirteen, I was able to spout a few Corellian imprecations that shouldn’t have been in my vocabulary. For good measure, I followed up with Mandalorian, then some Hutt phrases that young Anakin Skywalker, my junior by three years, taught me from Tattooine._

_At least in my mind._

_Oh, and the hits did keep coming. I was ‘too short a time as a youngling’. I’d only been there eight years, since age five. Even though I had bested every trial they had thrown at me; even some extra ones they thought up._

_Oh, well. I guess that I wasn’t a font of maturity at that time. But they had judged me by one who had come with me from that Corellian orphanage. A street thief and slicer three years older than me. A thief whose midichlorian count was only just above the minimum. An orphan that the orphanage insisted that the Jedi take, because he did have even those midchlorians that he had. A count that allowed him to be a nuisance to the orphanage administration; who were equipped to train spies, slicers, thieves, and courtesans in Corellia’s defense, if the orphans of age so choose, but not a baby-Jedi._

_A thief who was the closest thing that I have to a big brother, in spite of his small stature._

_I digress. We thought that the story was over, at least for the two years before they told her to try again._

_Until the both of us were summoned to Yoda’s quarters in the dark of night. Mace Windu, the future bane of my existence, but also our biggest unofficial and unacknowledged supporter, was there._

_“Final the decision is of the Council,” Yoda had said. “Chosen as padawan, you can be, in two years time, young Croft.” I had managed to keep my mouth shut._

_Windu spoke next. “However, Master Yoda and I are in agreement that Knight Ti is of great value as a teacher.”_

_Master Ti and I had looked at each other, neither daring to breathe._

_“Go to your birthworld, Shaak Ti, you will,” Yoda said. “There, you will develop a training program for Jedi padawans and Knights based on the Hunt culture.”_

_Ti had looked at Windu. “You’ve always said that my ideas of the Hunt have no bearing on Jedi; that Force training is enough.”_

_He had merely smiled. “Prove me wrong, Shaak. You have two years.”_

_She turned and looked down at me. I remember clearly one violet eye closing in a wink._

_Master Yoda had smiled. “Very successful you would not be if you didn’t have a test subject. Young Croft—act as your assistant he will.” His smile had faded for a moment. “Use the time well, the both of you.”_

_Even though we had no training bond yet, I could feel the joy and satisfaction rolling off of Shaak Ti._

_Windu had cleared his throat. “We confer the rank of Master upon you, Shaak Ti. You’ve earned it, even though it isn’t the traditional way.” His eyes had actually grown sad and had filled with the closest thing to compassion I’d ever seen there. “Even though you haven’t raised a padawan to Knighthood, the two padawans that you did teach were exemplars of the rank in every way. In addition, you have done great service in your mercy to Lyshaa, the murderer of your padawan.” He had held up his hand as Ti had started to speak. “Yes. It’s the Jedi way. The title means that you have mastered yourself, as well. Obi-Wan tells us that you were tempted like no other, not just from your grief, but with the added burden of whatever that was that came from the Peacekeeper.”_

_I see a look pass between her and Yoda. I never knew what that look was, nor did I ever find out what she had faced. All that I knew was that I was going to be a hunter and Shaak Ti’s padawan._

_Nothing else was said. We managed to bow and leave the small, homey room._

_In the corridor, I almost forgot myself and hugged Ti tightly to me. I stopped myself and gave a proper bow._

_She had smiled that serene smile—just a bit of her sharp incisors visible—a smile that I would later learn was one of pride in me. A different expression would herald one of my many trials of that same serenity._

_She gave that expression, then pulled me to her tightly. I was tall for my age at that time (I would only grow about a dozen more centimeters or so at my full height.). I chose to ignore the moisture that I felt in my mop of hair._

_In that instant, I had known that this would be a master-apprentice relationship like no other._

_Of course, all Masters and apprentices think that._

_I knew._

+=+=+=+=+=

**Epilogue: Two Years Later  
** **The Expansion Region, Ehosiq Sector  
** **Shili  
** **The Plains of Shandai**

_The Mother, as she now actually has taken to calling herself, accepting the inevitable, watches as the familiar form of the serene huntress makes her way down the hillside, her cub at her side. The Mother feels satisfaction as her eyes fall on the small strand of beads hanging from the cub’s cropped fur. She knows from her conversations with the huntress, that this is a mark of the next stage of his road to adulthood. She also knows that the beads, what the huntress had called ‘silka’, were her own, of that stage, until the cub could grow out his fur to make his own braid._

_She breathes in as she recalls the cub’s growth over the past few seasons. Of the huntress’s patient guidance as he and the one called the Ironmonger had forged the hunting knife on his belt. A belt worn over hunting clothes, rather than the swaddled heavy cloths he had appeared in. She feels joy as she sees his form, still dwarfed by his hunt-mother, but strong and slightly less pale than his first season—even though there had been a hint of bronze to his skin, even then._

_She sees the weapon of his other heritage hanging opposite that of his hunt-mother’s. Another weapon constructed by his own hands under the guidance of another, before the huntress had claimed him._

_With a bit of whimsy, her mind wanders to that claiming. She thinks on whether the huntress had claimed him in the manner of the Mother’s kind. She huffs as her mind’s eye sees the huntress licking the cub’s tawny-mixed fur._

_Her eyes lock on the obvious respect that the cub gives the huntress, as she gives him a lesson. The Mother reaches over and gives her own gray-furred cub a cuff, just on general principles. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees both the huntress and the cub share the equivalent, what they call ‘laughter’._

_Her cub starts towards them. The huntress’s lessons had included the ability to touch minds with her, as well as her cub. She chuffs at him, staying his gait. He turns and sits respectfully, his eyes the color of some of the lakes, with the highlights of the sun in them. As she always does, she tries to decipher where the gray fur comes from. Not from her mother and her mate. Certainly not from that useless male that had managed to mount her during a quick grapple. The biggest accomplishment of his life, having been gored by an_ akar _they had been hunting soon after that mounting. They had all been the same tawny mix; the colors found around her cub’s jaws. The same tawny mix as the huntress’s cub’s fur._

_She shakes her head as the two face each other. They both unsheathe the blades of their wizard-weapons. They begin to spar, blue against green, matching each other well, but the cub without the smoothness of the huntress’s style._

_Their laughter and light words echo in the valley; both with grins on their different features._

_Both full of life and of light._

_Without warning, the Mother reaches over and jumps on her cub. True to his skill, he manages to evade, then falls to the ground, wrestling with her._

_She sees the light in his eyes; knows that it is reflected in her own._

_The light of life—of love._

_All life is about love._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more on Zeltros and the Chalice, see _Land of Song_ https://archiveofourown.org/works/11578503
> 
> For more the further machinations of Doctor Laken, see _The Bud Shall Yield No Meal_ https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253691

**Author's Note:**

> _The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just._
> 
> Abraham Lincoln


End file.
